
Copyright N°_ 



COPYRSGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 
GREAT SECRET 

WHAT AM I? WHENCE CAME I? 
WHITHER SHALL I GO? 



By 
HENRY ROSCH VANDERBYLL 




BOSTON 

THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY 

INCORPORATED 



4>. 



y) 9 



Copyright, 1Q15, 
By Henry Rosch Vanderbyll 

All Rights Reserved 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, V. S. A. 



OEC 22 1914 

©CI.A388951 



PREFACE 

In the pages of this book is expressed, as 
clearly as such is possible, the hidden mean- 
ing of Life. 

Needless to say that Webster's dictionary 
does not contain enough words which could 
be adequately used for the purpose of telling 
humanity of the Great Secret. The soul, if 
sufficiently developed, is more or less able to 
CONCEIVE the truth of Existence, but our 
lips shall never be able to utter same. 

The poem " Eureka " is meant to be an 
answer on Fitzgerald's masterpiece : the Ru- 
baiyat of Omar Khayyam, which, alas, is not 
always being admired for its beauty of style 



Preface 

and rhythm only, but also for its philosophy. 
The philosophy — if such we may call it — 
expressed in the Rubaiyat, is absolutely neg- 
ative, and a direct insult to the beauty of 
Eternity that permeates the Whole. It is a 
philosophy that is greedily taken possession 
of by the Life-pessimist, the weakling. It is 
a sad enough truth that there are a great 
number of Omars walking through Life, with- 
out their weak, pessimistic beliefs being 
strengthened by such a philosophy as is ex- 
pressed in the Rubaiyat. 

In our other pieces we have emphasized the 
importance of Man's Thought of Self or Self- 
consciousness, which is, as our personal ex- 
perience and observation would tell us, the 
key to Life's secret chamber. In our opinion, 
Man should answer the riddle of the Universe 
as follows : " My Self is, and therefore mys- 

vi 



Preface 

tery, sorrow and pleasure are. My Self is, 
and therefore God is not; but when my Self 
is not, God is." 

Our apology for the appearance of this 
book is that " we had to write it." We have 
suffered and struggled, and believe to have 
found a remedy that will cure despair and 
defeat. We see humanity suffer and struggle 
and, naturally, are anxious to acquaint people 
with said remedy, which chiefly consists of 
Existence-wisdom. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 

An Apology and an Appeal to the 

American Public . 
Eureka ..... 
The Seething Volcano . 
Existence and Its Mystery 
The Progress of Creation 
What Should Socialism Be? . 
The Two Voices in Man . 

Psyche 

Swan-song of a Youthful Philosopher 



PAGE 
V 

I 

5 

34 

44 

64 

86 

102 

117 

136 



THE GREAT SECRET 

AN APOLOGY AND AN APPEAL TO 
THE AMERICAN PUBLIC 



I came from across the sea, 
O ! far from across the waves, 
Where the world seemed small to me 
And the people but its slaves. 

And oft on the shore I stood, 
Alone on its shifting sand, 
Saw the sun-rays turn to blood 
O'er a distant dreamt-of land. 



The Great Secret 

The song of the waves would bring 
Vague dreams of a mighty state, 
Where the souls of humans sing 
Praise unto th' Eternal Great. 

And the lisp of the breeze would bear 
The thoughts of a nation wide, 
Soaring high and everywhere, 
Marking Progress' mental tide. 

I knew — in that distant land, 
Whenever I roamed the shore — 
That, beyond, alone I'd stand, 
And my soul would yearn, no more. 

II 

I breathed a farewell to all 
That claimed me a native son — 
To the world that seemed so small, 
To the streams that smoothly run. 

2 



The Great Secret 

'Tis said, I have sunken low 
By leaving the spot that bore 
Home and cradle, joy and woe 
Of the ones I still adore. 

But wide is the Earth of ours, 
And deep is the Universe; 
Fair are all the growing flowers, 
Bright the stars that Heav'n traverse. 

And I'm a child of the Deep, 
Whose secrets I may convey 
Unto those that stoop and weep 
And from Faith and Wisdom stray. 

A child of the All am I — 
Of stars and the Milky Band, 
Child of Man and Earth and sky, 
Child of my own native land! 

3 



The Great Secret 

III 

I found on America's shore 
The All represented in Man : 
Lo! the nature-child of yore 
E'en his soul develop can. 

I found on America's shore 
The All represented in Thought: 
Emblems the buildings that soar 
Are of dreams in sky-depths sought. 

I found on America's shore 
The All represented in deed: 
Slave and Master are no more — 
All are brothers in their need. 

And a child of the All am I — 
Of stars and the Milky Band, 
Child of Man and Earth and sky : 
Child of th' American land! 



EUREKA 

(A \poem dealing with the Great Secret) 

I 

THE HAND OF FATE 

Methought a mighty hand invisible, 

Whose near approach no Wisdom could fore- 
tell, 

Would dart from the Unknown, and lead the 
way 

Capriciously to Heaven or to Hell. 

Resist? Ah, well, who knew the Hand of 

Fate 
To spare a victim or to hesitate 

5 



The Great Secret 

In striking ? Carefree pansy, bid adieu : 
A nymph hath crushed thee beneath her 
weight. 

I climbed the snow-clad mountain-peak that 

soars 
High into depths where virgin silence roars ; 
And from each cave, each crevice, darted 

forth 
That grim, dark sentinel of Earthly shores. 

And in the heart of desert-sands I stood, 
And tempted Fate, her might and cruel mood ; 
When merely stirred one single grain of dust 
That took the sight of one who challenge 
would. 

O Thou ! Who on this Earth my body cast, 
With Death my Future and without a Past — 



The Great Secret 

What power greater than Thy image-soul 
Should count my years to live, from first to 
last? 

That silence, brooding at the starry gates, 
It knows all secrets ; and to him who waits, 
This answer thunders through the pensive 

night : 
THOU, THOU THYSELF, art one of mil- 
lion Fates! 

The night is still and from Life's bosom calls 
A voice that is no voice ; and as it falls 
With thunder-clatter on the silent Deep 
And echoes down the Universal halls, 

I know that Fate, or Complement of Soul 
That would th' Imperfect make a Perfect 
Whole, 



The Great Secret 

Hath beckoned me. Come, lead the way, O, 

thou, 
Who yet art mine, though e'er beyond control ! 

Nor think that my Fate is alike to thine, 
For as the rose in beauty more divine 
Is first to seek her Fate, thus broader souls 
Know deeper pain, oft greater joy, than mine. 



II 



FATE AND FAITH 

More grief? And are not Progress' stepping- 
stones 
Bedded in ashes, strewn with withering bones ? 
See then a greater nation seek its birth 
In the last quiver of its dying moans. 

8 



The Great Secret 

My dreamt-of sweetheart have I long for- 
given : 

The pain, the torture, when our bonds were 
riven, 

Did strike a chord of slumbering Beauty's 
lyre — 

And 'twas a Hell that paved the way to 
Heaven. 

I pray not God to keep me from all pain, 
Nor crave the rose of Happiness in vain; 
And should the thorns be hurtful, more or 

less, 
Thee, Mighty One, I hear . . . , I try again. 

Ill . 

I AM 

'Tis true : the hyacinth one season knows, 
And only once the tulip's petals close ; 



The Great Secret 

The spring is born and blooms to fragrant 

death 
When o'er the land the summer-zephyr blows. 

In golden splendor summer fades away: 

" The rose is scarced, beloved, my temple 
gray; 

" Come nearer, for our blended hearts now 
beat 

" The solemn death-march of the autumn- 
day." 

And winter's blast hath petrified all Life: 
" Ah, vain our hopes and purposeless our 

strife ; 
" Undone our tears, annulled the joy of 

years — 
" Our last caress, our last embrace, my 

wife. . . ." 

10 



The Great Secret 

And is then all the shadow of a light 

That breaks the cloud-mass of th' Eternal 

night ? 
A flitting shadow that appears and goes 
For evermore? But then, that light . . . , 

that light. . . . 

And haunted by that phantom-echo, WHY, 
That calls from night-depths and the starry 

sky, 
I sought the river's brink, and at my feet 
Murmured Eternity's sweet lullaby. 

The forest pondered in a conscious sleep, 
The night-breeze searched the valley and the 

steep, 
And thousand star-worlds, million centuries, 
Did gaze and wonder at the mighty Deep. 

11 



The Great Secret 

Fair goddess Truth ! How oft thy still abode 
I sought where airy clouds the Heaven rode ; 
Too near thy dwelling-place, I gazed beyond, 
And preying Error hid my only God. 

'Twas then and there within me roared: I 

AM! 
From everywhere the silence roared : I AM ! 
Ah, death and dust and closing clutch of 

Time : 
Though all be born to die — yet, yet, I AM ! 

Not as the star that wafts her silver ray, 
Not as the stream whose ripples whirling play, 
But as that somber, gaping depth above — 
That Nothingness that knew Creation's day. 

Not as the eye whose lustre dims with years, 
Not as the lips whose smile Time's burden 
bears, 

12 



The Great Secret 

But as that ' stillness that pervades the 

Whole — 
That silence brooding o'er the thundering 

spheres. 

IV 

AS THE MIND FEARETH 

Many a man would fear the midnight-hour 
When Death annihilates all human power; 
He scans the clock whose needles ever move, 
He sucks the dew, the core, of Pleasure's 
flower. 

" I live but once," thus whispers soothing 

thought ; 
" The past and future merging into naught, 
" Should I to-day, when roses bid me stoop, 
" Reject their perfume that for me was 

wrought ? " 

13 



The Great Secret 

" This Life is one of e'er returning morn 
" Whose rosy hues the tomb of night adorn ; 
" And lo ! our little lives shall breathe no more 
" On unknown shores where other lives are 
born." 

" Upon the threshold of Hereafter's door, 
" O, sweetheart, yield the lips I now adore ; 
" For this I know, if once inside I pass, 
" Thy kiss and mine shall mingle nevermore." 



V 



AS THE SOUL SPEAKETH 

O, thou, who idly pratest of a soul 
Eternal; part and parcel of the Whole; 
Akin to God, and ever in the Now 
Existing, whilst the ages dying roll; 

14 



The Great Secret 

Yet wouldst tnou be a helpless doll of clay, 
Wrought by thy Master in His mood of play. 
A fancy-toy with power to move and think, 
And privilege to suffer Life away. 



VI 



THOU THYSELF SHALT SOLVE THE SECRET 

And ye that seek Existence to unmask 

With strength of Reason or the wine-filled 

flask, 
Waste not your brain-dust on the Book or 

Grape : 
Ye are unequal to a simple task! 

Nor beg of prophets, nor of Christ the Lord, 
To lift the veil or lisp the secret word ; 

15 



The Great Secret 

And that mute lily, yes, she knows it all — 
But, ah! in vain your greed for Wisdom 
stirred. 

If Dust I was, to Dust I must return, 
Then from that Dust the Secret I may learn ; 
Nor from the sages can I Wisdom draw, 
Nor from the spheres that in the sky-depths 
burn. 

VII 

THE BROTHERHOOD OF ALL 

Thou lover! Deep within thy sweetheart's 

eyes, 
Yes, read the mystery of mysteries : 
In THEM recall Eternity of yore, 
In THEM retrace Life's untold histories. 

16 



The Great Secret 

And now she* stoops above the nodding rose ; 
As if akin, her lips upon the petals close : 
And that fair picture in the hush of eve — 
It is the Secret that the Secret knows. 

And now she moves with grace and pensive 

brow, 
Her heart enraptured with the ev'ning-glow ; 
And with her moves the story of the Deep, 
The past and future of th' Eternal Now. 

VIII 

THE CONSCIOUS WAVE OF THE SECRET SEA 

One star-lit night I roamed the barren shore, 
The sea-song murmured of the Evermore ; 
And one by one the waves embraced the sand, 
They came and went with e'er complaining 
roar. 

17 



The Great Secret 

Methought their combs inquiringly were bent, 
And was it Fancy, or had the night-breeze 

sent 
These mortal whispers to the shore : " Where 

IS 
" That mighty sea that us Existence lent ? " 

Then sadly murmured one : " Ah, seek it not, 
" That mighty ocean that the waves begot ; 
" Make haste ! On yonder shore 'tis Death 

that waits: 
" To live and perish is our equal lot." 

And rose the moon with many a smile of 

gold — 
'Twere moon-y whispers that from Heaven 

rolled : 
" Yon heaving billows seek the secret sea 
" As God was sought by many a Wise of old." 

18 



The Great Secret 
IX 

life's sadness 

Life ! From my nook of solitude I hear 
Life's whispers faint within the passing year: 
The would-be-merry strain of music-halls, 
Some rippling laughter and the dripping tear ; 

A beauteous thought in desert-nighthours' 

frost, 
A gleam, a scream of Happiness at most; 
The crushing sound of trampled lily-stems, 
And panting Love that languished, lived and 

lost. 

Ah ! well the merry bells may tinkle-tink, 
But strangely sad their merriment I think; 

19 



The Great Secret 

And hear the bugle call through night and 
dark, 

And see the dawn-gray turn to morning- 
pink. . . . 

And e'en the Beauty of this world-abyss 
Is marked with sadness and the tear of bliss ; 
Perhaps our beings are not ripe as yet, 
And crave the fulness of th' Eternal kiss. 

X 

SORROW, WHY ART THOU? 

To thee, yes, shall I smile and happy be, 
But grudge me not my soul-deep misery ; 
For I am wed to Beauty's only child — 
The radiant Sorrow of Eternity. 

She rocked my cradle in the days of yore, 
She bade me wander on a lonely shore, 

20 



The Great Secret 

And, O! how oft her beauteous tortures 

begged 
The heart in me to hush and beat no more. 

When manly youth first heated in my veins, 
And, blindly, Joy would gallop without reins, 
I loathed her irresistible caress, 
Complained to Heaven of undeserved pains. 

One night forlorn, my soul to madness lit, 
In mountain- wilderness alone we met; 
And in her eyes I saw the Light Divine, 
And in her voice heard voiceless Infinite. 

XI 

I AM, AND THEREFORE SORROW IS 

She is no more, the Sorrow that would break, 
And may my body bend, my heart-depths 
ache, 

21 



The Great Secret 

Lo ! 'tis the soul that strengthens to the tear 
Of her who GIVES the value she would 
TAKE. 

And some would smile and know not of her 

kiss 
Whose coolness savors of the dank abyss ; 
But pity them, for strange to pain and grief, 
They smile their judgment: to be barred from 

Bliss. 

And others, more or less in Sorrow lost, 
Ignore the Purchase but lament the Cost; 
Nor dream that Loss in Tears is Gain in Soul, 
And that the largest soul must suffer most. 

In vain thy troubles at forbidden gates 
Dismissed; for while thou revel'st with thy 
mates 

22 



The Great Secret 

And lift'st thy tumbler to the joy of Life — 
Lo! patient Sorrow thy return awaits. 

And over thee in slumber she shall bend, 
And to thy dreams her saddening glory lend, 
Till, one day, thou shalt hear and KNOW her 

lisp, 
And marvel at thy ill-acknowledged friend. 

A friend! She would indeed become thy 
slave, 

As is the pebble of the rolling wave ; 

She haunts our souls, until we shall com- 
mand 

Her guidance to the Happiness we crave. 

Think not our Master at the Cross of Shame 
Suffered the tortures we would fear to name: 

23 



The Great Secret 

The King of Mankind and the Son of God 
Is blind to Sorrow and to Pleasure's flame. 

XII 

THE LIGHT THAT DARKENS 

Long-, long ago, no planets soared the Deep, 
The rose-to-be was beauteous Thought asleep ; 
And all that was, was HE, was DUST, was 

NAUGHT — 
HE ! HE ! ! Who soon would sow and grow 

and reap. 

Long, long ago, all Nothingness was I, 
Both the low valley and the mountain high ; 
When thou and I and all the Universe 
Did stir in Thought and bade the sun-worlds 
fly. 

24 



The Great Secret 

One atom of tke Whole awoke one morn 
AND KNEW IT WAS; and from this 

knowledge born 
Am I ; I who have soared this Universe, 
And in this Life felt homeless and forlorn. 



I know Him not, the One Whose very soul 

Breathed as mine own ; for can the stars that 
roll 

With brilliant splendor through the ether- 
depths 

Conceive the light that permeates the Whole? 

I know Him not, unless I dim the light 
That speaks of ME, who through the star-lit 

night 
Roams with MY Sorrow and MY loneliness, 
And in the clamorous day seek MY delight. 

25 



The Great Secret 
XIII 

GIVE AND RECEIVE 

'Tis said that thought beyond all reason 

proves 
To mould her wishes into things she loves ; 
Indeed, her power transcends our fairest 

dreams : 
She grows the flower and the mountain 

moves. 

And why then, prithee, has not every one 
Gathered the harvest of his dreams bygone? 
Why is it that our hopeful visions come 
And vanish as the ever-setting sun? 

Beware, my friend, of such philosophy 
That tells thy wish shall bring results to thee: 
'Tis not by asking that thou shalt receive, 
But GIVE, and thine is all Eternity. 

26 



The Great Secret 

Be not the ONE who struggles to possess, 
For in possession slumbers thy distress ; 
But be the many that forever aim 
To find the unity of consciousness. 

Be not the ATOM lost in own desire 
To find its bliss in Heaven's seraph fire; 
But be the WHOLE, the very son of God — 
Then shall the strife for Happiness expire. 

And still we read the tearful tales of woe 
Of bards sublime whose Muse wept long ago: 
Thou knew'st too well thy own deep suffering, 
And thou wouldst suffer, sorrow-haunted 
Poe! 

Th' illustrious Byron, deeply wronged, alone, 
As friend chose solitude and Hope had none: 
Ah, read his verse that pictures but himself, 
And leaves his brothers and the All undone. 

27 



The Great Secret 
XIV 

LOOKING BACKWARD 

How oft, beloved, we sat at yonder stream, 
When Earth was slumbering in the starry 

gleam, 
And wished this Universe were ours to rule, 
And Life the Eden of our lover's dream. 

And many years have rolled o'er thee and me, 

And swept our dreams into Eternity; 

That sigh thou heavest . . . , art thou not 

content ? 
Is Happiness not what it ought to be ? 

O, come again ! The river's murmur calls, 
And gentle moonlight on its ripple falls ; 
And all the night is saturated with 
That nameless beauty that the soul enthralls. 

28 



The Great Secret 

Thou f eelest* humble, say'st thou, in the sea 
Of depths that neither born nor doomed can 

be; 
But thou must not, for this is simple truth : 
That Deep is father of the world and thee. 



Thou art so little, say'st thou, but a grain 
Of human dust upon the Cosmic Plain. 
O, think it not : as big as all the world 
Thou canst be, and as broad thou shouldst 
remain. 



'Tis when with selfish love I view thy charms 
And all my longing to thy beauty warms, 
That in the heart of BOUNDLESS Nothing- 
ness 
Thy LITTLE form I hold within my arms. 



The Great Secret 

To-night I will not see thy lovely lips, 
Nor feel the touch of thy soft finger-tips ; 
I wish to know thee as the Fathomless 
Wherein the star her silver beauty dips. 

And He Who mute is as the Deep above, ' 
O, think Him not the far Unknown, my love ; 
For He doth roam the time-worn Milky Way 
And in the shadows of yon silent grove. 

In this deep solitude of God-alone, 
Lift not thy little hands to the Unknown, 
Whom by His muteness we would judge to be 
Or by His absence from the things we own. 

He who in selfish fear and humbleness 
Begs of his God to soften his distress, 
He knows Him not; he is the son that thinks 
More of himself and of his father less. 

30 



The Great Secret 

Let Thought of Self not of the Whole par- 
take, 

Be joy forgotten and a dream our ache ; 

For " I " can no more know my lonely God 

Than the loud ripple knows the murmuring 
lake. 

He who alone th' Eternal highway trod, 
Whose " I " was silent as the lily's nod, 
Had found the One Whom good and wicked 

seek — 
And people guessed more than they knew him 

God. 

To-night, dear heart, thy soul doth travel far 
Beyond the orb of the remotest star, 
And mingles with the all-embracing Deep 
Which flitting Time nor narrow Space can 
bar. 

31 



The Great Secret 

Sorrow is mute, and foolish seems the strife 
For Earthly gains ; and small those cares of 

Life 
That haunt our minds and tantalize our souls, 
And in this human world-abyss are rife. 

We shall return to yonder town : 

Hope shall bloom and Sorrow again shall 

frown ; 
Maybe Despair once more shall beckon thee, 
Or Joy thy troubles in her radiance drown. 

Think then, when darkest seems the sorrow- 
night, 

When brightest would appear thy Pleasure's 
light, 

Think then of others who perchance alike 

In sorrow stoop and pleasure welcome might. 

32 



The Great Secret 

'Tis then that? Thought of Self shall cease to 

be, 
Humanity, the All, Eternity, 
Thy own being, shall blend into the One, 
And th' All-embracing shall bring peace to 

thee. 



33 



THE SEETHING VOLCANO 

Mobs, anarchists, socialists, I. W. W.'s ! 
The forceful eruptions of the now active 
human volcano ! 

Do the mobs, anarchists, socialists, I. W. 
W.'s know WHY the volcano is in action? 
In all probability not. They see a goal some- 
where; they know that their whirling flight 
shall come to a standstill some day. But 
where and when they do not know. 

The heart of the volcano knows ! Leave it 
to IT! Let Progress walk over Revolution. 
Let a new humanity with new thoughts and 
new philosophies bury the now prostrate 
thought-world of the past century. 

34 



The Great Secret 

Christian Scientists, New-thought people, 
Universalists and a hundred other religious 
and philosophical organizations ! The lava 
boiling over the brim of the human volcano! 
Seeking an outlet, seeking a goal — where ? 
They do not know. 

The soul of the Universe knows ! Leave it 
to IT ! Let Spiritual Progress walk over past 
ignorance. Let humanity bury the dogmas 
and narrow-minded views that no longer fit 
to an advanced age. 

We are in the midst of a mighty revolution 
— purily a spiritual one. Many are not 
aware of this fact. People are apt to live 
day by day, and their thought does, often, 
travel not farther than the limits of their 
home-town. Very few are able to overlook 
this Life with one broad glance — to-day's 
Life, yesterday's Life and the Life of to-mor- 

35 



The Great Secret 

row. The universal soul, the one who feels 
his kinship with his mortal brothers and the 
Eternal depths above, links the Present hap- 
penings with the Past and the Future: the 
past — spiritual ignorance, expressed in ma- 
terial Life by slavery, cruelty, war, vice; the 
Future — spiritual knowledge, expressed in 
material Life by universal brotherhood, peace 
and virtue. 

What is the cause of sorrow, moral decay, 
cruelty, slavery, in one word, World-misery? 
The answer is as simple as it is surprising: 
Ignorance. We do not mean ignorance re- 
garding the building of a skyscraper, the 
financing of a railroad or the cooking of a 
meal. We mean World-ignorance — igno- 
rance of Life, its meaning, its purpose. 

Can many of us answer the question: 
whence come I, whither shall I go, and why 

36 



The Great Secret 

do I live this Life? The "great" Omar 
Khayyam could not, and he drowned his exist- 
ence in wine and took the kiss of wantonness. 

Hundreds of Omars walk through Life, 
"having a good time," drinking to the joy 
of Life, taking the honor of their sister. Con- 
demn them not : they do. not know, they do 
not understand, they are ignorant. 

Every one of us is ignorant, the one more 
so than the other. The entire world is 
plunged in half-dark ignorance. If we 
KNEW, if we were able to fathom the depths 
of Eternity, if we were acquainted with Life's 
secret, Life's divine purpose and aim, misery 
and wickedness would belong to the past. 
The employer would see a brother in the man 
who labors for him; the laborer would har- 
bor no grudge against him who has the power 
to employ him; the youth would honor the 

37 



The Great Secret 

maiden; ugliness, in thought and deed, would 
be conquered by beauty. 

Simple — this answer to the question: what 
is the cause of World-misery? It is IGNO- 
RANCE. So simple, indeed, is this answer, 
that learned philosophers shake their heads 
and point at a pile of volumes, the contents 
of which cannot solve the secrets of Life. 
The Eternal secrets, however, are extremely 
simple, too simple for our confused minds. 
We seek their solution in the clouds, in com- 
plicated formulas, in such thought-labyrinths 
as " The world as Will and Idea." 

History teaches us how Man and beast 
were offered as food to the gods ; how hu- 
mans, accused of witchcraft, were burned 
alive at the stake ; how slavery was a com- 
mon occurrence: ignorance — pure and sim- 
ple. 



The Great Secret 

t 

The world has progressed since then. We 

know a little more about the meaning of 
Life. There is a greater feeling of brother- 
hood permeating humanity. We even know 
of a sublime instance where a child of the 
African wilderness instructs humanity. We 
say " sublime instance ; " greater, more 
tremendous step of Spiritual Progress, no 
other country but America has ever been 
credited with. 

Yet is there still a great deal to be learned. 
The world, that, a few thousand years ago, 
was plunged in total darkness, is still wrapped 
in the somber veil of early dawn. Vice and 
sorrow are still the offsprings of Existence- 
ignorance. 

Nor does it appear that the church, the 
natural instructor of Life- and God-knowl- 
edge, is able to lift this veil of ignorance from 

39 



The Great Secret 

the souls of humanity. The power of the 
church has vanished. What is left of her is 
a mighty Coliseum — a ruin of grandeur. A 
seer of the dark ages could have predicted this 
hundreds of years beforehand. There is a 
reason, and, again, this reason is a mighty 
simple one : the thought-world has progressed, 
the spiritual in Man has developed, and the 
church is still teaching dogmas and beliefs of 
two thousand years ago. 

We do not say that the church teaches un- 
true things. The greatest Eternal veracities 
have been uttered by Christ, and can be 
found in the bible. These veracities have 
been ACCEPTED by humanity on authority 
of the church. They have not been 
GRASPED. The analytical mind that asks 
WHY about everything that is or should be, 
cannot receive an answer from the church 

40 



The Great Secret 
i 
on the questions : why do we live ? Why is 

sorrow? Who or What is God? 

The advanced mind of to-day, the spiritu- 
ally more developed soul of the twentieth cen- 
tury is no longer satisfied with the childish 
answer : the Creator wishes it thus. Nor is 
it afraid to seek for its own Creator. The 
misplaced God-humbleness, sprung forth from 
selfish fear and ignorance, is no longer dem- 
onstrated by the strong, noble soul. The 
strong man feels his kinship with the World- 
spirit. He " walks hand in hand with the 
Lord," and does not fear the Eternal Soul, 
the life of Which beats in his own veins. He 
understands that by fearlessly searching for, 
and KNOWING the World-spirit, he can 
benefit humanity more than by worshipping 
an unknown God from afar. 

Hear the volcano seethe and rumble ! 

41 



The Great Secret 

Watch this restlessness among the nations ! 
What is it? What do people want? 

The Soul of the Universe knows ! Leave it 
to It! Let Progress do her work. Let a 
child of humanity, a child of fathomless Uni- 
verse arise. Let him teach the people of the 
secrets of Life. Let him open their souls to 
the mysteries of sorrow and vice. Let him 
reveal to them the Eternal beauties of Ex- 
istence. Above all, let him not be afraid to 
answer the everlasting WHY. 

Humanity desires to KNOW. Mind and 
soul have developed, and need a more sublime 
faith, a broader understanding of Life's 
secret. Without Life-knowledge, without 
Wisdom, man is the slave of sorrow and 
disappointment, the victim of vice and crime, 
a helpless toy in the octopus, Life. 

Wisdom! Wisdom! The power greater 

42 



The Great Secret 

than that of sorrow or vice; the power that 
brings us safely over the most stupendous ob- 
stacles. *It inspires us with Faith. Without 
Wisdom we cannot have Faith; we can 
merely be helplessly submissive. 

Seething volcano, restless humanity, watch 
for a sign from America! America, the cra- 
dle of Universalism, where black and red 
and white are colours cast by one universal 
prism; where the head of the nation is the 
leader of Man; where thought is low as the 
Earth and high as the Heaven — America is 
nursing in its bosom the coming World-phi- 
losophy. 



43 



EXISTENCE AND ITS MYSTERY 

It has often been remarked, even by the 
greatest thinkers, that we, poor little dolls of 
clay, shall never be able to fathom the mys- 
tery of Existence. We sympathize with the 
man who, day and night, is engrossed in his 
futile search for the key of Life and Heaven. 
Our sympathy savors of superior pity; pity 
for the worm that would mount the starry 
sky ; pity for the mortal who would leave his 
ball of mud to pursue — an omnipresent God. 

For, indeed, when speaking of Existence, 
can one expel the thought of a Something, 
a Being, a God Who in some mysterious way 
controls the voice of thunder and torrent, the 

44 



The Great Secret 

breath of wind and Man? The most worth- 
less philosophy arrives at the conclusion that 
this visible world found its birth in a First 
Cause; which First Cause is generally called 
God ; and by some is conceived as a personal 
Being, by others as a spiritual One ; but, in 
truth, is hardly ever conceived at all, although 
we are loth to admit such. 

Inevitable — this coming face to face with 
our Creator, when prying into the secrets of 
Existence. The " pious man " — the one who 
ACCEPTS the words of the bible, instead of 
GRASPING their essence of truth — knows 
this. He does not allow his mind to ask for 
the " why and how " of Existence, for fear 
that doubt and wonder might shake his belief. 

But the philosopher is equally aware of this 
fact. Watch him build his tower of thought 
into the deep Heaven, where the Almighty 

45 



The Great Secret 

reigns supreme. Watch him desert his un- 
finished, thought-structure, leaving its comple- 
tion to Him whose presence he mentions in 
a few vague sentences. 

This superstitious awe, often mingled with 
selfish humbleness, is one of the many causes 
that keep us from fathoming the depth of 
Universe. He who knows the Eternal Being 
That permeates the Whole, is able to grasp 
the divine purpose of Existence. He under- 
stands the meaning of Life, of sorrow, vice 
and virtue. He has the power to lift human- 
ity from its present state of World-igno- 
rance ; an ignorance from which emanates all 
wrong-doing, all sorrow. To him is given the 
divine privilege to lead spiritual world-prog- 
ress one step further towards Perfection — 
which is the End of all, which was the Be- 
ginning of all. 

46 



The Great Secret 
i 

Were we to give a definition of Man, we 
would define this curious life-enigma as fol- 
lows : Man is the living Thought of Self. 

This sounds like a rebuke, an accusation. 
We thoroughly dislike to be called selfish. 
Our conscience tells us that it is wrong to 
think of ourselves only. Nevertheless, we 
stated the truth — a truth over which the 
wisest men did not ponder deeply enough. 
For it accounts fof our existence as mortals, 
separated from God and the Eternal : wrapped 
in the all-mysterious veil of birth and death. 
Indeed the secret of Life, the secret of 
EVERYTHING, is to be found in this 
thought of Self, which is the Self-conscious- 
ness referred to in the study of Psychology. 

Do not imagine that Thought of Self ceases 
to be when we share our abundance with our 
neighbors or, even, when we part with the 

47 



The Great Secret 

last silver-piece in our possession. When rid- 
ding ourselves of all our Earthly goods, we 
yet remain Thought of Self incarnate. 

We tread this Earth, we soar this Universe, 
as separate beings, separate " I's." Wherever 
we are, whatever happens to us, we hear the 
voice of that mysterious " I " that seems to 
speak from within us ; that prompts us to 
action; that whispers to us of the beauty and 
the sadness of this world; that inspires us 
to commit deeds of wickedness or heroism. 

Indeed, a complicated agglomeration of 
" I's " — this mysterious world of ours. 
There is the solid rock, the grim shape of 
which looms from the dark of night; there is 
the lily, commanding in her timid beauty; 
there is the bird, twittering joyously in the 
blossomed bower; there is Man, toiling for 
a living and, perchance, a future Heaven. 

48 



The Great Secret 
i 

And rock and lily, bird and Man — all are 
different " I's " that conceive this mighty Uni- 
verse in a widely different manner. Even you 
and I do not enjoy music to the same extent; 
we are not, momentarily, filled with the same 
dreams, hopes and sorrows, when watching 
the sun paint the evening-sky with his flaming 
hues ; we do not pray to> the same, identical 
God — identical in conception — when agony 
overpowers us. Your mysterious " I " is dif- 
ferent from mine : different in degree, but 
identical in mode, of conception. 

We do not realize enough that this " I " is 
the all-predominant characteristic of Man. 
Yet do we find the proof of this statement 
as near as our own being. Let us remember 
our pleasures and sorrows. Is it not this 
strange " I " within us that tells us the eve- 
ning-walk is delightful? Is it not so with all 

49 



The Great Secret 

pleasure? What else but " I " enjoys a good 
dinner, a nice present, or a well-planned re- 
venge? Is it not this strange "I" that 
mourns the loss of a departed friend, that is 
wounded by disappointment? Is not our sor- 
row caused by Thought of Self? 

How often do we sigh under the heavy yoke 
of Life's sorrow and struggle. " O, the sorry 
trade ! " exclaimed Omar — this compulsory 
purchase of a pain-marked existence for 
which we did not contract. 

Sorry trade! Did the Master-man think 
likewise? Did his lips ever utter such words 
during his life of suffering and self-denial? 
Did the world hear his Self complain of the 
injustice that haunts this Life? — Nay, HE 
knew the secret of Existence. He had sub- 
dued that strange voice that speaks from 
within. There was no " I " m Christ that 

50 



The Great Secret 

could be hurt by pain or disappointment. He 
was free from those bondages which we know 
as sorrow and pleasure. 

Omar, your song is, after all, the song of 
the Life-pessimist, the song of the mortal 
Man; while Christ's silence regarding his 
sufferings is the song of the Eternal, of God. 

Let us now endeavor to point out that Man 
is as irresponsible for this Thought of Self as 
he is for his very Existence. In order to do 
this, we are obliged to view this mighty Uni- 
verse, with its numberless stars and fathom- 
less depths, from his lowly standpoint. And 
the first important fact that would draw our 
attention is that of Man being aware of a 
relativeness existing between him and the All. 
When viewing the star-lit sky, he is aware 
of an insignificance that marks him. He 
compares his small body, limited by three di- 

51 



The Great Secret 

mensions, with the fathomless world-abyss. 
Think of those depths that never find a bot- 
tom, never find their emptiness bordered by 
a wall, a fence, or some imaginary sky-struc- 
ture! Inconceivable! He must, indeed, be a 
speck of dust of an infinite world-desert; an 
atom, which may — who knows, perhaps to- 
morrow — be taken up by an unknown whirl- 
wind, and swept to death and destruction. 

This, then, is Man's conception of Self in 
relation to the Infinite. He vainly endeavors 
to measure the world-depths in inches, feet, 
miles. He is a being that knows of Space 
— a something utterly unknown to the Soul 
of the All. 

Thinking of that gaping depth above, that 
always was and ever shall be, Man mourn- 
fully considers his Life to be a flitting dream. 
What are sixty or seventy years of Life in 

52 



The Great Secret 

comparison with the everlasting Existence of 
that Nothingness above? 

We have here expressed Man's conception 
of Self in relation to the Eternal. Man is 
accustomed to measure the life-duration of 
existing things by means of a clock. He 
knows of Time — another something utterly 
unknown to the Heart of the World. 

Infinite and Eternal: the fundamental qual- 
ities attributed to our Creator. We speak of 
an Infinite and Eternal God. 

As we have pointed out that a feeling of 
separateness exists between Man and the In- 
finite and the Eternal, this same feeling of 
separateness must exist between Man and the 
Infinite, Eternal God. Man who cannot con- 
ceive the Infinite and the Eternal, is unable 
to conceive the Deity, Whose being is omni- 
present and ever-existing. He considers him- 

53 



The Great Secret 

self a lowly worm, crawling at the omnipres- 
ent feet of his Creator. It is often with fear 
that he utters the name of the Mighty One. 
The more fear is being exhibited by an in- 
dividual when mentioning the name of the 
Almighty, the dimmer, as a rule, is his con- 
ception of the Infinite and the Eternal. 

Strange — this separation, this wide gulf, 
between Man and God. Strange, for the one 
great characteristic of Universe is Unity, 
Oneness, while this world now would appear 
to be dualistic — consisting of the Deity, and 
Man and the visible, perishable world. 

Has this world-wide separation between 
Man and Deity ever existed? Was it thus 
in the Beginning? 

Let us for a moment strain our power of 
imagination to the utmost, and picture our- 
selves the fathomless Universe before the 

54 



The Great Secret 

Beginning. We endeavor to conceive a 
Boundless Deep — empty, void of stars, suns 
and planets — an empty Nothingness. 

We say Nothingness; and, yet, it is a 
Something, for it has ever existed — an Eter- 
nity ago; it shall ever exist — for another 
Eternity to come. It is the, Only One, the 
Whole, the All. It is the omnipresent Deity 
in Whose bosom the lily and the star, butterfly 
and Man, hope and sorrow, are beautiful 
slumbering ideas. It is the World-father in 
Whose boundless arm we lay asleep ; we, 
who to-morrow shall walk through Life, won- 
dering at the mighty scope of Universe and 
the littleness of our own being. 

We now are approaching the Beginning or, 
who knows, one of the many Beginnings. 
The Whole consists of an infinite number of 
parts. A part becomes conscious of its own 

55 



The Great Secret 

existence. This is inevitable, and its existence 
is a self-evident truth. When you, reader, 
deny your existence, your answer on the 
question: who denies your existence? shall 
be: I do; which answer contradicts your 
former denial. If birds and flowers, even 
specks of dust, possessed the gift of speech, 
no doubt their Self, their " I," would prove 
its existence in the same manner. 

This ever-speaking, Life-usurping "I" 
speaks in the Beginning; it suddenly knows 
but of itself; it becomes the center of con- 
ception, sensation and observation. Where, 
before, it was mute, and an unconscious part 
of the Universal All, we now see that it is a 
self-centered being, the soul of which is akin 
to that of the fathomless world-abyss — Eter- 
nal, Infinite. 

But the voice of this strange " I " is louder 

56 



The Great Secret 
i 
than that of the thundering God-silence. " I " 

is chiefly aware of its own existence; this is 
the all-predominant thought. " I " has, fur- 
thermore, a dim conception of the All; it is 
conscious of a God Who fills the world-abyss 
from depth to depth. And " I " is aware of 
a relativeness existing between itself and the 
All. 

These three kinds of consciousness — con- 
sciousness of Self, consciousness of the All 
and consciousness of a relativity between Self 
and the All — are expressed in material, visi- 
ble Life by the three dimensions: length, 
breadth and height. 

The awakening of Self, the realization of 
Existence, marks the day of Creation, and 
causes the birth of that which psychologists 
call Self -consciousness. It throws an impen- 
etrable veil between the newly awakened be- 

57 



The Great Secret 

ing and the infinite depths of Universe, the 
former being as the ocean-wave that is aware 
of its sparkling foam and its rolling path, and 
vainly seeks for the ocean of which it is part 
and parcel. 

We shall leave it to more learned men to 
describe the evolutional progress of the visi- 
ble world. Most of our great philosophers 
analyze and dissect the visible, perishable 
world, and trace its origin into the faint glim- 
mer of a creation-dawn. We shall treat with 
the boundless Universe, whose features are 
the Infinite and the Eternal — the latter being 
the only real foundations of the world we 
marvel at. 

We now have a better understanding of the 
existence of the wide gulf that separates hu- 
manity from the Deity. Naturally, the ques- 
tion turns up: shall we ever return to the 

58 



The Great Secret 
i 

All; or shall we always remain that self- 

centered being that soars the Universe on 

wings of pain and sorrow? 

The answer to this question has been given 
long ago, but, we dare say, has never really 
been grasped. We think of the Master who 
taught people to give, to love their neighbor, 
to lead a Life of poverty and self-denial. 

This wonderful teaching, which contains 
the very secret of Existence, found number- 
less followers. Not, we fancy, because people 
understood why they should give and deny 
themselves, but because this teaching is divine 
truth ; because Truth lives and is all-power- 
ful. Most of the Eternal veracities are ac- 
cepted by humanity on authority, they are not 
really grasped. One might endeavor to 
fathom the " why " of the above-mentioned 
teaching and, if successful, lift an important 

59 



The Great Secret 

part of the veil of mystery that keeps the 
world in ignorance ; an ignorance from 
which, as stated before, are born evil and 
sorrow. 

The life of Christ, the God, was indeed a 
sorry trade, according to Omar, the Man. 
But never a word of complaint fell from his 
lips. Never a sigh of despair heaved his 
breast. The ever-speaking " I " that rules 
our beings was mute in Christ. Once or 
twice it endeavored to overrule the Universal 
"I;" but Christ's wisdom, and faith subdued 
it. He would not even display his super- 
natural powers to a curious crowd, for fear 
that the " I " within him would become con- 
scious of its marvelous power. It would have 
meant one step nearer to mortality, one step 
further away from the All. 

We can now understand that Christ was 

60 



The Great Secret 
• 
able to bear the terrible sufferings that were 

almost too terrible for a human being to bear. 
He had mastered the consciousness of Self; 
there was no " I " within him which he al- 
lowed to be hurt by pain and sorrow, or 
pleased with pleasure. He was conscious of 
the All, of the Deity, only : he was God Him- 
self. 

Christ, indeed, has taught us the secret of 
Existence, and has pointed out the road to 
Heaven, to the All — whence we came, 
whither we shall go. 

Let us endeavor to keep our feet on this 
road. When sorrow and disappointment 
would tire our soul, let us remember that we 
suffer because the " I " within us is conscious 
of itself only. Let us be conscious of human- 
ity at large, of our struggling brothers, of the 
world, of the All. Let us think ourselves a 

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The Great Secret 

part of this mighty Universe, instead of an 
atom IN it. 

In vain our " I " fed with the desire of 
revenge, the feeling of antagonism and ha- 
tred. Utterly foolish — this everlasting envy, 
grudge and hatred between creeds, societies 
and parties. Utterly useless — this bitter 
struggle between labor and capital. When 
bitterness marks this struggle, both parties 
are wrong: both desire more, more, always 
more; neither think of giving. 

And we, the younger generation, let us 
think before we act. It is being remarked 
by wise men that, morally, we have sunken 
low; that we do not honor virtue; that the 
young man of this age does not respect pure 
womanhood. Let us remember that it is this 
ever-speaking " I " that ever wishes and de- 
sires — both good and bad things, in most 

62 



The Great Secret 

instances the* bad things ; that by feeding this 
tyrannical " I," we increase its prominence, 
and are less able to bear pain and sorrow, 
and, consequently lead a life of suffering. 

We should be strong. A fathomless Uni- 
verse is backing us. We are not the helpless 
human toys in the grasp of a Mighty Invis- 
ible Hand as we sometimes would think we 
are. There does not exist a world-wide sep- 
aration between mortality and the Eternal by 
command of the Mighty One. WE are the 
only cause of this separation; our thought 
of Self is the cause of it. 



63 



THE PROGRESS OF CREATION 

As we are able to reduce the complicated 
study of chemistry to that of eighty original 
elements and, ere long, shall realize that these 
eighty elements find their origin in one 
mother-element; as we are able to trace the 
birth of planets, suns and stars in a one Cos- 
mic Substance; thus shall humanity, some 
day, seek the origin of all that is — mean- 
ing thereby the visible world, including 
Man — in a One Original Universal Some- 
thing. 

We purposely evade the word " substance " 
in this instance. Substance is conceived by 
the mind as a tangible, often visible, some- 

64 



The Great Secret 

thing, a volume, a body. The original Soul 
of Universe, however, is not substantial, is 
not Matter as conceived by the mind. 
Wherein would this Universal matter seek its 
birth? In nothing? A fundamental truth of 
the material world is that something cannot 
proceed from nothing. If then the Soul of 
Universe consisted of matter, we would be 
obliged to seek for another Soul from which 
this matter came forth. This Soul should 
necessarily be not-matter, for else we would 
find ourselves in a similar dilemma as be- 
fore. 

Humanity has temporarily solved the prob- 
lem by naming this not-matter Spirit; by 
believing that this World-spirit created the 
visible world. Even at present, many of us 
believe that Man was created in his present 
state of body-progress. This is merely belief, 

65 



The Great Secret 

however, and a convenient exit from all argu- 
ments regarding the origin of Man. A pe- 
culiarity of the human mind is that it does 
not wish any question to remain unanswered. 
It invariably finds an answer that shall soothe 
the restless inquiry of humanity at large, 
until mind and soul shall have progressed and 
shall require a more satisfactory solution of 
the problem. 

Our present knowledge of the material 
world enables us to trace back our origin to 
the creation of matter in its simplest form. 
Beyond this point the mind is, apparently, 
unable to penetrate. And it is again our be- 
lief that this simple matter was created by 
the World-spirit. It is our belief that an all- 
powerful Spirit chose to call this matter into 
being; allowed us to roam through Life, 
whether we wished so or not; marked our 

66 



The Great Secret 

lives with the pang of sorrow and the horror 
of death. It is our belief, for Wisdom and 
Knowledge are generally preceded by a be- 
lief that, in many instances, savors of the 
truth. 

The above-mentioned belief, although in 
many details a divine one, is, taken as a whole, 
absolutely unphilosophical, childish and ugly. 
To assume the existence of a World-spirit 
That shortens the Eternal hours by creating 
stars and human beings that are helpless in 
Its all-powerful, boundless grasp, is a thought 
which springs forth from stupendous igno- 
rance. It, furthermore, cannot inspire the 
soul with Faith ; merely with an Omar Khay- 
yam-like mingled feeling of submission and 
rebellion : if I am my Master's toy cast upon 
this field of pain and pleasure, I prefer to 
choose the path of pleasure ; fear, only, can 

67 



The Great Secret 

induce me to follow the straight and narrow 
path — fear of my Master's anger being 
roused, and of a punishment that may follow 
in the Hereafter. 

Such belief, then, is the child of ignorance ; 
an ignorance for which Man cannot very well 
be reproached. He is as irresponsible for this 
ignorance as for his very existence. But it 
shall not mark him until the " day of destruc- 
tion." We emphatically deny the unwar- 
ranted assertion that Man shall never be able 
to fathom the mystery of existence. This 
labyrinth of Life, wherein the dollar rings, 
the tear drips, the laugh echoes ; wherein the 
society belle wafts her gracious smiles and 
the poor, old mother knits her stocking; 
wherein ambition camps with disappointment 
and hope is smashed by failure ; this strange 
labyrinth of Life holds an invisible inmate 

68 



The Great Secret 

— Progress. We do not mean Material Prog- 
ress. The latter is, as all material and visible 
things are, merely a reflection, an expression, 
of a something-invisible behind it. Spiritual 
Progress is, indeed, the inmate that walked 
this Life-labyrinth since times immemorial. 
Spiritual Progress, nothing else. 

As the centuries roll on, her dim, hazy 
radiance becomes brighter, and slowly dispels 
the darkness of Existence-ignorance. Is not 
History's sole purpose to convince us of 
this fact? Where is the Walhalla of the 
Teutons, wherein the departed ones drank 
beer from the skulls of their defeated foes? 
Where is the child of Universe that worked 
for his brother as the slave for his lord and 
master? Where is the king who commanded 
over the lives of his subjects? Where is the 
witch who was burned alive for her incom- 

69 



The Great Secret 

prehensible feats of healing? Where is the 
Hell that shall torture into deep Eternity the 
soul of the sinner? 

Great, noble, fearless, thinking America! 
The hand of spiritual Progress, indeed, lin- 
gers over thee ! The belief in a burning 
Hades is no longer preached in thy churches. 
Man is still ignorant, but no longer so com- 
pletely enwrapped in the darkness of Exist- 
ence-ignorance as to fear the agonies of an 
Eternal Hell. 

Let us, indeed, not seek the progress of 
Universe in the whirling flight of the aero- 
plane, in the towering height of the sky- 
scraper, in the refined fashion of the year 
1913. These accomplishments are mere vis- 
ible expressions of the soul-progress of hu- 
manity; a progress which has reached a cer- 
tain point on its path towards perfection. We 

70 



The Great Secret 

see in America's skyscrapers the emblems of 
America's thoughts that freely soar into the 
deep Heaven. The flight of the aeroplane 
indicates that the human soul is making its 
first attempt to traverse infinite space. The 
wireless is the half-tangible expression of 
thought travelling between two distant points. 
In the far future humanity shall discard the 
wireless as being a superfluous plaything; 
people shall convey their thoughts to each 
other merely by thinking. 

Nay, the world's progress is to be found 
in the SOULS of the people. All material 
progress merely indicates, in visible figures, 
to what spiritual height humanity has climbed. 
Let us seek spiritual progress in the fact that 
a greater feeling of brotherhood is permea- 
ting humanity; in the fact that the human 
soul is no longer satisfied with the mere belief 

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The Great Secret 

in a Creator, but earnestly searches for the 
Same and expresses a desire to KNOW the 
World-spirit; in the fact that Existence- 
ignorance becomes less stupendous as the 
centuries roll on. 

When speaking of the progress of the 
human soul, we naturally have in mind the 
starting-point : Imperfection, and the goal : 
Perfection. Nor can we speak of something 
being imperfect, unless we compare it with 
something else that is perfect. The standard 
of Perfection, in this instance, is the World- 
spirit, from Which imperfect humanity in 
some humbler form emerged; the World- 
spirit That knows not of sorrow and pleas- 
ure, of time and space, of birth and death; 
the World-spirit in Whose bosom was born 
the great secret of Existence, in Whose 
bosom shall die this great secret. 

72 



The Great Secret 

The imperfection of the human soul lies in 
the fact that it is, as yet, unable to grasp the 
secret of the existence it enjoys; or, which 
means the same, that it is, as yet, not capable 
of KNOWING the World-spirit. For to 
know the secret of Life, naturally, brings 
along the absolute KNOWING of the World- 
spirit. The soul is not imperfect for the 
reason that a supreme power created it with 
the mark of imperfection that shall accom- 
pany it through all Eternity. 

In order to realize this more clearly, we 
shall endeavor to find the cause of Man's 
Existence-ignorance. Why is Man's exist- 
ence an utter mystery? Why is the Creator 
he believes in separated from him by a fath- 
omless gulf which, apparently, shall never be 
crossed, unless it be in the dreams of a myth- 
ical Heaven? 

73 



The Great Secret 

The answer to these questions must be 
found in Man himself. It is a startling truth 
that he who searches for the secret of God 
and Life shall, some day, find the answer 
hidden in his own soul. Not all the books of 
the public libraries, not all the learned men 
on Earth, not all the saints and church-dis- 
ciples, can acquaint the individual with the 
hiding-place of the key to Life's secret cham- 
ber. The books might tell him the secret, the 
saints might lisp the secret word, but in vain. 
The individual would hold the key in his 
hands, but he would be unable to find the 
lock. He cannot GRASP the secret, unless 
his soul have progressed sufficiently on its 
journey through Eternity to be able to CON- 
CEIVE. Thus we maintain that certain pas- 
sages of the bible contain the very secret of 
existence; that humanity at large has, spiri- 

74 



The Great Secret 

tually, not developed sufficiently to be able to 
conceive the truth hidden in said passages ; 
that, consequently, belief, which is errone- 
ously called Faith, inspires the soul of the 
individual ; that this belief shall, as human- 
ity progresses spiritually, turn into a CON- 
CEPTION, a GRASPING, of the truth — 
when Man shall be inspired with an uncon- 
querable faith, which can only proceed from 
Wisdom. 

But Man shall not only, sooner or later, 
find the solution of the Life-problem in his 
own being - , he is, indeed, the sole cause — be 
he such then unconsciously — of the wide 
separation existing between him and Eter- 
nity and the Infinite. He himself wraps Ex- 
istence in that impenetrable veil of mystery. 
He does so unconsciously and, consequently, 
ascribes the mysterious phenomenon of his 

75 



The Great Secret 

existence to the inexplicable ways of the 
Supreme Being. 

The chief charactristic of Man is his con- 
sciousness of Self. In truth, Man is an atom 
of fathomless Universe chiefly conscious of 
its own existence. We hear our present phil- 
osophical world speak of our self-conscious- 
ness and our God-consciousness. But, in- 
deed, the first amounts to 99 per cent, against 
the latter to 1 per cent. Were we absolutely 
self-conscious, we would be classed among 
the brutes, whose only thought is that of 
preservation of Self. Were we absolutely 
God-conscious, we would equal Jesus of 
Nazareth, and be fully prepared to leave for- 
ever a life of mortality. 

It should be borne in mind that this con- 
sciousness of Self is of the most vital impor- 
tance when considered in relation to the se- 

76 



The Great Secret 

cret of Existence. It should be realized that 
this consciousness of Self is the only quality 
that fully defines the thought-man (this in 
comparison with Man as body). What, in- 
deed, are hope, disappointment, sorrow, pleas- 
ure, vice, virtue, crime and heroism but the 
offsprings of self -consciousness or Thought 
of Self? 

Let us give a few simple instances: 
I have struggled for several years in order 
to obtain literary fame. At last I succeed. 
My success gives me pleasure. Who or what 
is pleased? I am! I! I! The Self, the 
nucleus of which is this body is pleased. If 
the voice of this Self, this " I" within me, 
were subdued, I would neither care for fame 
nor for pleasure. 

I stand at the grave of my departed friend. 
I am heart-broken. I do not care to con- 

77 



The Great Secret 

tinue Life without him. I shall feel lonely, 
and be constantly tortured by his sad absence. 
Who or what feels the pang of sorrow? It 
is the Self, the " I," within me that is 
wounded. If I were able to subdue this 
voice of Self, I would be able to conquer 
all disappointment, all sorrow. I would, in- 
deed, be the sole master of my Life. 

And thus is this Life a Life of sorrow and 
disappointment, NOT because an outside 
agency would have it thus, but because Man's 
voice of Self is all-predominant : I AM , AND 
THEREFORE SORROW IS. 

Let us compare two souls, the first of which 
was nearly all self-consciousness, the latter 
all God-consciousness. 

The melancholy voice of Omar Khayyam, 
the life-pessimist, still charms many of us in 
this twentieth century. It is the voice of the 

78 



The Great Secret 

mortal, the self-centered being 1 , whose voice 
of Self overthundered the still voice of fath- 
omless Universe. Omar called the compul- 
sory purchase of Life a sorry trade. His Self 
rebelled at the struggle and the sadness of 
Life. His Self was desirous to enjoy the 
pleasures of Life. His Life-companion was 
the grape, his kisses were those of wanton- 
ness. Omar was Thought of Self incarnate. 
A brilliant contrast of pure God-conscious- 
ness was Jesus. In our opinion, Jesus stands 
alone among humanity as being the only soul 
that had fathomed the secret of Existence. 
He had fathomed it, because he had subdued 
the voice of Self. There was no " I " in 
Christ that could be pleased or hurt. He 
was master of sorrow and disappointment, 
master of pain and torture. He was purely 
Universe-conscious, God-conscious. Christ, 

79 



The Great Secret 

as Self, did not exist. Christ, as the atom 
of Universe conscious of its own existence 
only, was not. Christ was All; he was a 
part of the fathomless World-abyss, instead 
of a separate atom IN it, as nearly all humans 
are. It is true, therefore, that Christ was 
God, although people guessed this truth more 
than they knew it. 

Self-consciousness, Thought of Self, an 
intense realization of our own existence as a 
separate atom : this is the key to the great 
Secret. A human being is as the star that, 
blinded by its own brilliant light, cannot con- 
ceive the glimmer that permeates the Whole. 
He is as the foamy wave that, sadly murmur- 
ing, seeks the secret sea and, apparently, finds 
its death on the shore. Wherever we roam, 
in whatever position we find ourselves, we are 
aware of the strange, mysterious " I " within 

80 



The Great Secret 

us. It follows us, it haunts us, and we are 
so accustomed to its presence that we do not 
notice it at all. 

And how then does Spiritual Progress 
manifest itself in the souls of human beings? 

History gives us the answer. 

In the darkest of ages the brute man, en- 
dowed with brute force, was aware of his 
Self only. His chief thought was that of 
preservation of Self. He spent his Life in 
hunting the animal that furnished food for 
his brute existence; in hunting the female 
that would satisfy his brute passion. He, his 
Self, built up the Universe. The voice of 
" I " was the only voice known to him. The 
voice of the All was as yet mute. 

Very slowly, we see this voice of Self grow 
less. We pass through the periods of slavery 
and cruelty, of tyrannical kings and univer- 

81 



The Great Secret 

sal warfare to the age of democracy. And 
as the consciousness of Self becomes less 
important, the All-consciousness increases. 
Through the absolute darkness of Existence- 
ignorance, which is the direct offspring of 
absolute consciousness of Self, appears the 
faint glimmer of Existence-wisdom, which 
only comes to him who subdues the voice of 
that mysterious " I " within him. 

To-day, America may be justly proud of 
the fact that it is leading in spiritual devel- 
opment. It does not know of the ridiculous, 
narrow-minded class-distinctions so dear to 
Europe, and which are distinct indications of 
existence-ignorance and extreme Thought of 
Self. At the head of the nation stands a 
leader of Man, instead of a ruler of men. 
And the fact that a child of the African wil- 
derness is not only tolerated, but considered 

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The Great Secret 

the white Mian's equal, and is thus in a posi- 
tion to develop spiritually, is, indeed, a more 
than sublime one. 

In years to come, the self-consciousness of 
humanity, and likewise Existence-ignorance, 
shall become less and less ; All-consciousness, 
or God-consciousness, and likewise Existence- 
wisdom, shall increase. Very few are aware 
of the fact that Life, with its struggles and 
seemingly cruel lessons, is the teacher of the 
soul. Endeavor once to be stronger than 
your disappointment, stronger than your sor- 
row ; for once sacrifice yourself for the sake 
of your brother: you shall have won a vic- 
tory over that mysterious " I " that is the only 
barrier between mortality and the Eternal 
World-spirit. 

FOR YOU, STRANGE BEING, KNOW- 
ING NOT OF THE "WHENCE" AND 

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The Great Secret 

THE " WHITHER; " YOU WERE ONCE, 
BEFORE THIS VISIBLE WORLD HAD 
COME INTO BEING, AN UNCON- 
SCIOUS PART OF THE ALL, AND, 
CONSEQUENTLY, THE ALL ITSELF. 
THE REALIZATION OF YOUR EXIST- 
ENCE AS A PART, AN ATOM, CAME. 
IT STILL CLINGS TO YOU, AND IS 
CALLED BY LEARNED MEN SELF- 
CONSCIOUSNESS. IT WAS THE 
CAUSE OF YOUR LOSING SIGHT OF 
THE ALL. IT MADE YOU A SELF- 
CENTERED BEING, APPARENTLY 
SEPARATED FROM GOD AND THE 
ETERNAL BY A BOUNDLESS GULF, 
BUT IN REALITY ONLY BY YOUR 
THOUGHT OF SELF. LIFE IS TEACH- 
ING EVERY ONE OF US HOW TO 
SUBDUE THE " I " WITHIN US. HEED 

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The Great Secret 

NOT DEATH. YOUR "I" NEVER 
DIES, YOUR BODY DOES. ETERNITY 
IS, AND CAN AFFORD TO WAIT. IF 
YOU CANNOT LEARN YOUR LESSON 
IN SIXTY YEARS, YOU SHALL LEARN 
IT IN SIX HUNDRED OR SIX THOU- 
SAND. EVEN THE CRIMINAL SHALL 
SOME DAY DISPLAY THE MIRACU- 
LOUS POWERS OF A CHRIST ; EVEN 
HE SHALL HAVE THE OPPORTU- 
NITY TO ENTER THE HEAVEN OF 
PURE ALL -CONSCIOUSNESS. 



85 



WHAT SHOULD SOCIALISM BE? 

All churches, creeds, sects, in short, all 
philosophical organizations found their birth 
in a certain Truth relating to the secret of 
Existence. A man acts unwisely when con- 
demning a Catholic, a Spiritualist, a Chris- 
tian Scientist or a Socialist for his thoughts 
and beliefs. Let him, instead, endeavor to 
discover what real foundation of Truth was 
the cause of the calling forth of the existence 
of such religion or philosophy. Let him fur- 
ther consider the many influences of Man 
and Life that would add a considerable 
amount of Untruth and Error to the original 

86 



The Great Secret 

Truth and, often, distort the latter into an 
unrecognizable dogma or theory. 

In order to do this, one must, necessarily, 
have a clear understanding of the meaning of 
Life; not only of the Life that, apparently, 
fills our beings from our birth to our death, 
but of the Life, the Existence, that emerged 
from Nothingness and, at present, still lingers 
in the boundless hand of a slowly proceeding 
Creation. It shall then become clear to the 
student of Life and humanity that no philos- 
ophy, no belief, however absurd in our per- 
sonal opinion, is void of Truth. 

Spiritualism, for instance, is founded on 
Truth. The Spiritualist got hold of a link in 
the chain that winds from past Eternity to 
future Eternity. He does not know of the 
entire chain. His knowledge does not go be- 
yond that of the link. His philosophy, natu- 

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The Great Secret 

rally, is hidden in a veil of dark mystery. It 
does not, at present, satisfy the soul that 
searches for the secret and the divine purpose 
of Existence. 

The same may be said of Christian Science. 
Criticise it, but condemn it not. One of the 
most sublime Eternal veracities supports the 
Christian Science religion. But grim errors, 
the offsprings of Man's existence-ignorance, 
have pushed this sublime Truth into the dark 
background — out of sight, beyond recogni- 
tion. As the Spiritualists have done, thus 
have the Christian Scientists taken hold of 
a link in the Eternal chain. Their philosophy 
is likewise hidden in a veil of mystery and 
untruth, as a result of their Existence-ig- 
norance. 

And thus we may roam the globe, and from 
the most incomprehensible beliefs and relig- 

88 



The Great Secret 

ions of civilized and uncivilized nations learn 
a little bit otf Truth about the Great Secret. 

Also Socalism is founded on a sublime 
Truth. But, strange to say, this Truth is 
not, or hardly, conceived by the one who 
advocates it. We may safely say that a So- 
cialist does not know for what he is working. 
He thinks he does and he is, indeed, very 
emphatic in his beliefs and assertions. But, 
also in this instance, Truth has to struggle 
with existence-ignorance — an ignorance far 
more overwhelming than that of the Spiritu- 
alist or the Christian Scientist. 

What called Socialism into existence? The 
answer is : dissatisfaction with social condi- 
tions on the part of a certain class of hu- 
manity. 

Wnat is the cause of this dissatisfaction? 
Capitalism ? The employer ? No — capital- 

89 



The Great Secret 

ism and the employer are indirect causes. The 
real cause is to be found in the individual 
himself. The direct cause is a personal de- 
sire, a personal wish. 

Socialism is a philosophy dealing with the 
material prosperity of a certain class of indi- 
viduals only, a certain part of humanity only. 
It is, if we may say so, a philosophy born 
from Thought of Self. It is, in its present 
state, a thoroughly human philosophy, with 
very little of the divine in it. The divine 
Truth that slumbers in Socialism is, as stated 
before not grasped by the ones that advocate 
it. 

A philosophy that is not intended to benefit 
humanity at large can never materialize the 
thoughts it expresses, nor enjoy immortality. 
Its aim is bound to remain a Utopia. For it 
thus happens that the World-spirit, with 

90 



The Great Secret 

Whom, by the way, the Socialist bothers as 
little as possible, does not allow any thought 
to live that does not benefit the whole of 
humanity, nor any thought that finds its birth 
in Thought of Self. 

Jesus, " the carpenter of Nazareth," for 
whose name the Socialist, as a rule, has great 
reverence, has demonstrated this clearly by 
his deeds and through his teachings. Thought 
of Self was utterly unknown to him. He 
lived for humanity, for the poor, the perse- 
cuted, the sorrow-stricken, the sinners, nay, 
if we wish to state the clear, simple Truth, 
Jesus lived for those who were the victims 
of ignorance — ignorance of Life, its mean- 
ing, its aim, its purpose ; ignorance of the 
secret power that guides us through this 
world-abyss. 

It is a startling Truth that all sorrow, vice, 

01 



The Great Secret 

crime, in short, all World-misery, are the off- 
springs of existence-ignorance. He who is 
acquainted with the secrets of Life cannot be 
conquered by sorrow and despair. Such a 
being does not " kick " at hard luck ; he does 
not think himself wronged because thousands 
of others possess more material power than 
he does. He realizes that Existence has a 
starting-point and a goal; that Life is not 
merely a struggle for the obtaining of food, 
clothes and luxuries. Human beings, be they 
princes x>r beggars, aristocrats or socialists, 
philosophers or cowboys, all alike seek, in his 
opinion, the path that leads from Yesterday 
to To-morrow. All alike have to fight their 
battles, to conquer their disappointments, to 
nurse their sorrows — in short : to develop 
their souls. Such man never asks the assist- 
ance of others, never complains of the hard 

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The Great Secret 

struggle of •Life. He has Wisdom ; and Wis- 
dom calls forth Faith. He knows WHY he 
should be in such and such position, WHY 
disappointment should meet him, WHY Ex- 
istence appears to be an unfathomable secret. 
Life is his friend and teacher, instead of his 
foe and murderer. 

As stated before, Socialism is a philosophy 
sprung forth from Thought of Self. It is 
an extremely human philosophy. Is it not 
human to desire that which others possess 
and we not? Such is, let us state cold facts, 
the simple, childish thought that permeates 
Socialism of to-day. It is human to ask: 
why should he or they be more materially 
powerful than I am? It is human to evade 
the answer on the question and merely say: 
it should not be. It is extremely human, and 
consequently, extremely erroneous. 

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The Great Secret 

The Socialist is a self-centered Existence- 
ignoramus. He has no knoweldge of Ex- 
istence outside of that which controls the 
strings of his purse. He conveniently ig- 
nores the existence of a World-spirit. All 
that interests him is his material welfare. Of 
Yesterday and To-morrow he knows nothing, 
and thinks less. He thinks of To-day, of 
his life that flows between Yesterday and 
To-morrow. What matters a future Eter- 
nity to him? NOW is the all-important 
time. Could he but conceive that this Now 
is an infinitely small part of the Eternal 
Now. . . . 

This ignorance of a World-spirit and the 
divine purpose of Existence marks the So- 
cialistic philosophy with Untruth. Accord- 
ing to its views, Man is the all-powerful 
being who could, if he wished, be able to reg- 

94 



The Great Secret 

ulate happiness, comfort and material pros- 
perity in Life. This, however, is but partly 
true. In whatever position we find ourselves 
in Life, we are brought there indirectly 
through our own doings, but directly under 
the influence of a power, a Something, of 
Which, alas ! very few people know — the 
Socialists least of all. We do not wish to cut 
all argument short by stating that whatever 
happens to us is the will of the Creator. Such 
answer is a convenient one to all problems 
relating to Life and Existence, but does not 
satisfy the Wisdom-eager soul. We will 
merely state here that not a single grain of 
dust of this wide Universe is being moved 
unless there be a reason. There is a " why "- 
and a " how " with regard to everything that 
is, or happens, in this world. There is a 
" why " and a " how " with regard to our 



The Great Secret 

insignificant or brilliant social position, our 
sorrows and disappointments, our struggles 
and obstacles encountered. There even is a 
" why " and a " how " as regards that ap- 
parently unfathomable secret: Life. And 
as long as an individual has not answered 
these two little questions, would it not then 
seem natural that he follows the example 
of the " great " Omar ? Is it not natural 
that he should feel averse to toil and 
sorrow? May one expect of him to 
realize that the path to Heaven leads over 
thorns ? 

This, then, is the great error of the Socialis- 
tic philosophy: the Socialist only recognizes 
material Life and Man, which are, indeed, 
mere links in the Eternal chain ; he does not 
consider the One Great World-spirit breath- 
ing through Man and flower, Earth and sky ; 



The Great Secret 

he is absolutely ignorant of the " why " and 
the " how " regarding all that is. 

Far be it from us to reproach him for this 
ignorance. Man is as irresponsible for this 
Life- and God-ignorance as for his very Ex- 
istence. Not only the Socialist, but, indeed, 
humanity at large is still groping in the gray 
dawn of an awakening Existence-wisdom. 
As the centuries roll on, this Wisdom broad- 
ens, as is clearly demonstrated in History. 
Let us remember the slavery, cruelty, mur- 
der and sacrifice of a few thousand years 
ago, and observe the greater feeling of broth- 
erhood permeating humanity and the clearer 
understanding of Life in our present age. 

But what then is that divine music ringing 
in Socialism? The word expresses one of 
the most beautiful thoughts, one of the most 
divine ideas, that ever dwelt in human mind. 

97 



The Great Secret 

Nor does its music, in our opinion, relate to 
dollars and cents. 

We think of the Master, whose ambition was 
NOT material prosperity, but whose aim was 
the spiritual welfare of humanity at large — 
of the poor and the rich, the powerful and the 
weak, the healthy and the diseased. He was, 
indeed, a Socialist — who saw a brother both 
in the vermin-eaten beggar and the crowned 
king. Jesus did not instruct humanity as to 
how prosper materially. On the contrary, 
his teachings contained the secret of how to 
BEAR suffering, disappointment and misery. 
His aim was to inspire the ignorant with Wis- 
dom. For, after all, what power is more tre- 
mendous than that of Wisdom? There is 
no obstacle, however stupendous, that is able 
to keep a soul that KNOWS from success. 
There is no sorrow, however great, that has 

98 



The Great Secret 

the power' to break the soul that KNOWS. 
For Wisdom is the mother of Faith. Faith 
should not be a blind, submissive belief. It 
should be a strong, unshakable KNOWING. 
When we KNOW what ineffable power is 
the Soul of Universe, when we KNOW 
Yesterday and To-morrow, when we KNOW 
the meaning of sorrow and struggle, where, 
then, are all the powers of Hades that could 
keep us from steadily following our path 
through Eternity? 

Let Socialists be brothers, not only among 
themselves, but of humanity at large. The 
more society is split up by parties and or- 
ganizations, the farther away it finds itself 
from Perfection. Unity, Oneness, is the 
great characteristic of Universe. Without 
Unity no peace, no Heaven. 

Antagonism and rebellion against the hard- 

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The Great Secret 

ships of , Life should not be the chief traits 
of Socialism. A man should be strong. He 
is more than a speck of dust blown by some 
mysterious power over the plain of Life. A 
mighty Universe is backing him. An Eternity 
clings to his soul. 

Should such a being spend his life fighting 
his brother, who, burdened with gold, is like- 
wise searching for the path of To-morrow? 
Foolish, utterly foolish, and an insult to the 
World-spirit we claim kinship with! 

We all are more or less developed souls, 
we all are the more or less exalted expression- 
visible of Universal Spiritual Progress. 
Money and material power are but mere inci- 
dents, mere tools that very conveniently en- 
able us to suffer and worry and struggle and, 
consequently, develop our souls. 

Fight and conquer! This should be the 

100 



The Great Secret 

motto of the 1 Socialist, in fact, of every human 
being. 

Fight and conquer — not our brothers, but 
our SELF! 



101 



THE TWO VOICES IN MAN 
(A leaf from an unpublished diary) 

There are two voices in Man. The first, 
as a rule, is by far the strongest. It is the 
voice of Mortality, which is born within us ; 
the voice that desires and hopes, despairs and 
suffers. It is the ever-calling voice of Self, 
by which Man is chiefly characterized. 

The second voice in Man is that of Eternity. 
It is the voice of the divine. It echoes down 
the infinite depths, and does not sing of hope 
and despair. It is absolutely unselfish, in fact, 
ignores the existence of the individual. It 
tells us in silent whispers of an Only Some- 

102 



The Great Secret 

thing, Which is the Soul of this seeming het- 
erogeneous Universe. 

The following lines are taken from a diary, 
written by one in whom the above-mentioned 
two voices were in conflict. The author of 
this extraordinary manuscript is no more. 
Death took him unexpectedly in the prime of 
manhood. And it is, indeed, with a feeling 
of uneasiness that we undertake to publish 
the most sacred thoughts of one who has 
joined the world beyond. 

Yet do we soothe our conscience by con- 
sidering that, in all probability, our departed 
friend would have given his thoughts to the 
world, had he lived long enough. We re- 
member how he used to remark that it is sin- 
ful to keep one's thoughts from the world. 
"If your thoughts are wrong," he used to 
say, " thinking humanity shall profit by find- 

103 



The Great Secret 

ing arguments against your theories. And if 
your thoughts are Truth, they shall live ; if 
not to-day, then to-morrow ; if not to-mor- 
row, then after you shall rest beneath the soft, 
green grass of the cemetery." 

Let us hope, then, that our seeming indis- 
cretion of prying into the private thought- 
utterings from one who is no more, shall 
bring peace and rest to his now roaming 
spirit. 

July 5th, 19—. 
I hear the whisper of Life stir through the 
still night. Great, seething, mysterious Life, 
that once held promises of might and power. 
Sad, beautiful Life, that once knew how to 
wound and how to please. It is no more — 
the Life that commands in masterful voice. 
I am master of my Fate, master of the Life 

104 



The Great Secret 

that harbors, this Fate, master of pain and 
pleasure, hope and despair. For I have no 
Self that can be tortured by loss and pain, or 
be soothed in happy moment. I am no more: 
the Universe is, the All is, the Only One is. 

We, mortals, nay, all the living" and the 
seeming-dead things that build up this visible 
Universe — what are we, what are they, but 
atoms of the World-spirit conscious of their 
own existence only? 

See the brute Man think of his Self only. 
He — and the Earth and the starry Heaven 
build up his Universe. He comes first; then 
Earth that yields the fruit and the meat for 
his brutal existence; then the cloud-topt sky 
and the starry depths that inspire him with 
wonder and amazement: the seed of spiritual 
knowledge that shall bloom in the centuries 
to come. What knows he of a Universal 

105 



The Great Secret 

Spirit, this self -centered being? Speak to 
him of a Supreme being - , while his stomach 
craves food, and he shall slay you to satisfy 
his desire to eat. Better leave him alone. 
Life shall teach him. Life with its sufferings 
and disappointments teaches all of us. 

We all are, more or less, such self-centered 
beings. Is not our first knowledge that of 
our own existence? Is not our first thought 
that of Self? Why do we suffer, if not be- 
cause our Self is slightly or seriously 
wounded? Why do we enjoy, if not because 
our Self is pleased? 

Ah ! this consciousness of Self that throws 
an impenetrable veil between mortality and 
the All ; that plunges Existence into an un- 
fathomable secrecy. 

I have reached a point on my path through 
Eternity, where the voice of the All is louder 

106 



The Great Secret 

than the voice of Self. It has become clear 
to me that, at one moment, we have emerged 
in visible, tangible, form from that boundless 
depth that surrounds us ; that at another mo- 
ment, thousands of years afterwards, we shall 
return to the Universal womb of apparent 
Nothingness. 

Hast Thou not taught me, Only One, that 
before the speck turned into the fragrant rose, 
before the atoms developed into stars, all this 
visible world was an unconscious part of 
Thee? That realization of Existence, the 
mother of Thought of Self, marked the day 
of Creation? Atoms that were unconscious 
parts of the Whole, suddenly became con- 
scious of Self, which happening would mean 
an Existence-long separation between mortal 
and God. 

Have I subdued this voice of Self? Am I 

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The Great Secret 

slowly returning to the All? Are those 
strange powers I am endowed with — are 
they the signs along the Eternal road? 

Great Spirit! Yesterday I had no Self, no 
desire, no pain. I lived for humanity; for 
those that err and suffer. I was Thy human 
mouthpiece. But, to-day, Love has entered 
my heart. And it is divine happiness to listen 
to her sweetly human thoughts. It is beau- 
tiful hope that pictures a little home, ringing 
with the voice of your beloved one. 

Can I bear to give her up? Is the voice 
of my Self not wholly subdued? 

Give us strength, Mighty One, and guide 
us both. . . . 

July 7th, 19--. 
If I knew not, if I were not acquainted 
with the secret power of Life, I would not 

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The Great Secret 

hesitate irnmaking her my bride. But I was 
chosen by the World-spirit to strengthen the 
faith-forsaken soul; to teach humanity of the 
Eternal Truth that slumbers beneath the ever- 
changing garment of this flitting world. And 
each hour spent in forgetful happiness is 
stolen time. 

Hear the sob of the mother, grieving for 
her lost son. What power but the divine 
one is able to console her wounded heart? 
What else but a clear understanding of the 
meaning of Existence can soothe her won- 
dering mind ? Hear her reproach the Creator 
for His cruelty ! Hear her curse the almighty 
power of death that took her son from her! 

My duty calls me to the side of this griev- 
ing mother. For there is one power greater 
than that of heart-breaking sorrow. This 
power is Wisdom. Wisdom opens the depths 

*09 



The Great Secret 

of Universe to the inquiring soul; it answers 
the everlasting " why " that haunts Exist- 
ence. The meaning of everything becomes 
clearer. We realize that we are more than 
a helpless doll of clay cast upon a soaring ball 
of mud. There is a starting-point, there is 
a goal. 

See Vice walk over its fallen victims! 
What else is Vice but the child of World- 
ignorance? What else is it but the creation 
of Thought of Self? Does not our Self wish 
and desire? Is not our Self satisfied by pos- 
session? 

There is one power greater than that of 
Vice. This power is Wisdom. If every one 
of us understood the meaning of Life, Vice 
would be a thing of the past. If every one 
of us knew whence we came and whither 
we shall go, the beauty of Eternity would 

110 



The Great Secret 

inspire our souls, and ugliness and Vice 
would be repulsive. 

Great, wide world, that harbors misery and 
tears, scattered hopes and dark despair — I 
hear your voice calling me ! In the midst of 
humanity I must walk ; in the midst of 
sorrow and vice. Thousands of souls suffer 
through ignorance ; thousands of them think 
this Life an empty, sorrowful dream. I, who 
know, must teach them, and inspire them with 
strength and faith. 

July loth, 19 — . 
Great World-spirit! I have obeyed Thy 
silent voice until the present hour. I have 
blindly followed the path indicated by Thy 
invisible hand. I have learned from Thee the 
secret of Life. I have given Wisdom when- 
ever souls were ripe to receive. I have been 

111 



The Great Secret 

a child of fathomless Universe — until to- 
night. . . . 

To-night her little head has rested on my 
heart. Her soft hand has caressed my hair. 
Our lips have mingled in a kiss of pure, deep 
love. 

On my cheek still lingers that subtle per- 
fume that speaks of her. In my ears still 
echo her sweet whispers of womanly devotion. 
From the dark of night still beam her true 
eyes. 

See me kiss this dainty flower that rose and 
fell with her heaving bosom. Hear me swear 
that she is my God — next to Thee. 

Thou and I know what it means, this 
terrible, beautiful love. It means one step 
nearer to mortality, one step further away 
from the Eternal and the Infinite. It means 
a swift return to Thought of Self, the cause 

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The Great Secret 

of the wide gulf existing between the mortal 
and Thee. ' 

Mighty Spirit, guide me through this life- 
abyss. Tell me in Thy silent whispers 
whether he, whose soul is one with Eternity, 
may lead a life of bliss and happiness. 

July 12th, 19 — . 
I, as real child of mortality, am satisfied 
with the one great beauty Life has offered 
me. In my heart has rooted a love, tender 
and strong, wild and terrible. I, who cannot 
be broken by storm and thunder, torture and 
agony, delight in casting my soul beneath her 
dainty feet. She, the little maiden with the 
childish curls, her pensive eyes, her winning 
smile, has made me her slave. Beauty and 
goodness have unlimited power; and she is 
all that is good and beautiful. 

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The Great Secret 

Command me, darling little woman! Shall 
I pilot thee through Life? Shall we, hand 
in hand, trace its hidden beauties? Shall we 
together soar the glimmering depths of 
Heaven? Or shall we hide in a dense flower- 
garden, and build our little nest among the 
rose-bushes ? Speak, little one, for I am thine, 
wholly thine ! 

Ah, not so ! The silent voice of the World- 
spirit descends from the remotest corner of 
Universe. It tells me that I belong to the 
All. 

Be still, mighty voice of Self! Thou must 
not be! Thou art not! No selfish, personal, 
passionate love shall feed thy wishes and de- 
sires. The soul, whose nucleus is this body, 
does not belong to thee. It vibrates from 
world-center to world-center. It is one with 
all the mighty Universe. 

114 



The Great Secret 

Grant her strength and Wisdom, Mighty 
One, that sHe may be able to understand and 
bear. . . . 

These are the last words written by our 
extraordinary friend. On July the fourteenth, 
we placed our flowers on his cool grave. 

And as we stood there in the silence of the 
cemetery, wondering at his unexpected de- 
parture from this life, the strange, unheard-of 
belief that he would return suddenly pos- 
sessed us. 

Had the World-spirit, as he often called 
the Creator, purposely taken him away ? Was, 
after all, our friend not wholly ripe for the 
divine work which, as he believed, was his 
by divine command? Perhaps this short Life 
had to teach him the last lesson to be taught. 
The last spark of Self had to be subdued. 

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The Great Secret 

He would then be a soul fit to teach human- 
ity of the Great Secret. 

We expect him to return. Humanity needs 
him, apparently. For we agree with his the- 
ory of humanity being wrapped in the half- 
darkness of world-ignorance, and sorrow and 
vice being the children of this ignorance, 



116 



PSYCHE 

(A sketch, wherein the Soul has the gift of 
speech) 

" Psyche, Psyche ! must I part from your 
beauty? May I never again dream myself 
into nothingness in your soul-deep eyes? 
Must this, O tell me! must this be the last 
time that I listen to your voice ? " 

" It must be so, Velmar." 

Her voice was kind but decisive. 

He threw himself upon his knees, crushing 
the flowers that had slipped from her hands; 
and, wildly kissing the hem of her dress, he 
uttered his last appeal: 

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The Great Secret 

" Psyche ... I cannot bear it. . . . Do 
you hear, Psyche, I cannot ! Since the day I 
beheld you, the stream would murmur your 
name, and the evening-breeze lisp a lullaby 
for you. And, at night-time, from the very 
depths of boundless Universe, I hear your 
voice calling me. You are all, you are every- 
where. You, whose soul has annihilated mine 
— you must take me altogether: me, me, my 
heart, my body and my love for you ! " 

The woman's lips trembled. It was painful 
not to be able to give that for which he asked. 
Her eyes sought the deep blue of the sky, as 
if from those infinite depths she might draw 
strength and assistance. Then she looked 
down upon her companion, and gently ca- 
ressed his hair. 

"Velmar," she said, "your love is selfish, 
although you may not be aware of this fact. 

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The Great Secret 

And Thought of Self is as well creative as 
destructive. »It was the cause of human ex- 
istence, and it is the source of all evil and 
sorrow. 

" Come, seat yourself beside me, and listen 
to the story I shall tell you." 

Velmar obeyed her silently. 

" Do not interrupt me," she continued, 
" even if, at first, you may think my story 
strange and impossible. When I shall have 
told you all, you shall understand. And I 
know that you shall be able to bear the pain 
which now seems unbearable." 

She lowered her voice to a half-whisper. 
And it seemed to Velmar that it was not she 
who spoke; that her mouth was merely the 
beautiful mouthpiece of a Something, a Be- 
ing, that filled the deep of the valley and the 
fathomless abyss of the sky. 

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The Great Secret 

" There was a time, Velmar, when I was 
the All. This was an Eternity ago. To you, 
this seems so infinitely long ago, that your 
mind is incapable of conception. This is 
merely because you measure Eternity by min- 
utes, centuries and aeons. 

" To me it seems like yesterday. Eternity, 
Velmar, has no beginning and no end: all 
exists in the everlasting Now. 

"When I say that I was the All, I 
mean that I was not wrapped in a bodily 
cover that would make us believe that 
we are but a grain of dust upon the Cosmic 
plain. 

" I possessed the power to gaze into the 
very depths of the Universe; those depths 
that, twice their own depth deeper, still are 
deep. And I was able to look into the future 
and the past — an Eternity ahead and an 

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The Great Secret 

Eternity backward. For both Past and Fu- 
ture were Present. 

" I knew not of sorrow or happiness, nor 
of ugliness and beauty. I was a drop of a 
boundless ocean and, consequently, the ocean 
itself. I was the All, but was unconscious of 
this fact. 

" The moment arrived that would change 
this peaceful Heaven into flitting mortal Life. 

" I floated above a planet, and saw its orb 
outlined against the dark of the deep. Below 
rolled waving meadows, and countless flowers 
were star-like scattered in the fresh, green 
grass. The hush of twilight hovered over the 
scene. All was still as the deep around, save 
for the murmur of the brook. 

" And twilight fled for approaching night, 
and the moon covered the flowers with her 
silver light-garment. 

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The Great Secret 

" I heard the sound of steps ; and I heard 
the cry of a soul that is in agony. A youth 
had sought the solitude of night and the silent 
whisper of the All. 

" He knelt down in the grass, hid his face 
in his hands, and sobbed freely. And his ut- 
terance of grief was an unspoken prayer for 
solace. 

" Suddenly, strange feelings, hitherto un- 
known to me, seemed to change the nature 
of my inner being. That moonlight-scene, 
those nodding flowers, and the youth kneeling 
among them — sobbing his grief into the still 
night — all this suddenly appeared to be in- 
effably beautiful. 

" My first wish was born : I longed to de- 
scend to him whose soul was sad. ' I wish 
those mute flowers, that pale moonlight, his 
grief and, above all, him, him, to be mine. 

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The Great Secret 

Mine ! that I may nurse his wounds ; mine, 
that he may know, and be one with, my being 
that now is strange to him.' 

" Such was the thought that echoed from 
within me. And as its last quiver died away, 
I seemed to awake from a long, long dream. 

" What was this strange ' I ' that had the 
power to wish? Why did its wish cause my 
being to ache? And why was everything so 
sadly beautiful? 

" Still stronger spoke the ' I ' within me ; 
it claimed recognition ; it had found itself ; 
it had become conscious of its own existence. 
And, slowly, the infinite depths of Universe, 
the peace of Eternity, the All faded away. I 
was no longer an unconscious part of the All. 
I had bought my Earthly Life and paid the 
price of Heaven. 

" The thought uppermost in my being was 

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The Great Secret 

the thought of Self : ' I ' was, and ' I ' had a 
dim conception of the magnitude of the 
Whole ; and ' I ' thought itself infinitely little 
in the presence of the All-embracing deep. 

" These three thoughts entombed my being 
in a living body of three dimensions. 

" I found myself kneeling in the grass, 
gathering the fairest flowers of the meadow. 
How fresh and beautiful they were ! How 
dreamily sad was the moonlit scene ! 

" And there was he whose sufferings I 
wished to be mine. I approached him and, 
silently, placed the gathered flowers at his 
feet, hoping that he might learn from them 
the unspoken wish that ached in my being. 

" He spurned me. ... No woman could 
heal the wound that had been inflicted by one 
of her sisters." 

" Psyche . . ." Velmar suddenly inter- 

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The Great Secret 

rupted her. A momentary look of recogni- 
tion lit up his eyes. That story Psyche was 
telling him . . . , it sounded so familiar. It 
suddenly occurred to him that he had seen 
that youth himself ; that he had seen Psyche 
stand before him in that moonlight night ; 
long, long ago. . . . No, not long ago . . . , 
yesterday. . . . 

"What is the matter, Velmar?" Psyche 
asked. 

He woke up from his dream with a start. 
And that strange picture of the scene in the 
moonlight disappeared as suddenly as it had 
come. 

" Nothing, Psyche, go on." 

" That night," continued Psyche, " I did 
not rest. I vainly sought for the Heaven that 
had been my Eternal home ; where I had 
never known the pang of sorrow and the bar- 

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The Great Secret 

riers of time and distance. A feeling of fear 
possessed me, when I looked up at the stars 
that were infinitely far away. I was so little, 
and the Universe was so deep, so terribly 
deep. With a mingled feeling of reverence 
and awe, I sank upon my knees and prayed 
to the All, to God, that He might guide me 
through the world-abyss and take me back 
unto Him. 

" The dawn tinted the sky with a rosy hue, 
when I started on my path of Life. 

" Shall I describe my Earthly Life to you? 
It has been as that of all others — a restless 
struggle for happiness. Soon after I had 
entered Life, the thought of Self became 
gradually stronger. I had to struggle in 
order to exist; I imagined my own power 
to be the only one to depend upon. 

" I have been both poor and wealthy. But 

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The Great Secret 

even when I was not compelled to struggle 
in order to, exist, there was always that 
strange something for which I searched; that 
something for which we all search, and often 
call happiness. 

" One day, I read of the Master who had 
taught the world to give freely. Very few 
understand the deep significance of this teach- 
ing. Most of us would give because we think 
it our duty, just as a schoolboy would think 
it his duty to go to school. We do not under- 
stand that by giving, by forgetting our Self, 
we slowly return to the All. Thought of Self 
was the cause of our loss of Heaven ; thought 
of the All, of the Universe, of our struggling 
brothers, shall be the only means to regain 
Heaven. 

" Life ! Humanity ! What is the meaning 
of it all? Would many of us dream that the 

127 



The Great Secret 

beggar in the street, the king on his throne, 
the convict in his cell, all alike, are uncon- 
sciously seeking for the End that was the 
Beginning of all ? Life is our school ; it shall 
teach us the truth — if not to-day, then to- 
morrow; if not to-morrow, then in a thou- 
sand years from to-morrow. Eternity is, and 
can afford to wait. 

" For every one of us the sublime moment 
shall arrive when we shall grasp the real 
meaning of self-forgetting and self-denial. 
That moment shall witness the blending of 
the Atom with the All. 

" This, Velmar, is the secret of life, Hell 
and Heaven. There shall be a Hell for all 
of us, as long as we think ourselves the cen- 
ter of Universe; as long as loss and crushed 
hopes drive us to despair ; as long as Thought 
of Self is all-predominant. 

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The Great Secret 

" We secretly admire sacrifice and heroism. 
He who sacrifices himself is, momentarily, 
more divine than human. He has subdued 
the voice of Self. He no longer sees the 
world from a lowly human standpoint ; he 
conceives it as it really is : boundless, fathom- 
less and one in essence. He is momentarily 
endowed with superhuman power; nay, who 
knows, he may get acquainted with the mirac- 
ulous powers of the All, of Whom he is a 
worthy son." 

The hush of twilight had now descended 
upon Earth, and a beautiful, calm stillness had 
gradually soothed Velmar's turbulent mind. 
He had listened intently to Psyche's story, 
which, at first, had seemed to be a wonderful 
fairy-tale, but gradually had adopted the hues 
of reality, of truth. 

And he was half ashamed of himself; 

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The Great Secret 

ashamed, because he had been weak and had 
begged a woman for something she could not 
give ; ashamed, because he had desired and 
been the slave of disappointment. 

But with the feeling of shame arose that 
of strength and faith, as a result of under- 
standing. Where, before this, he had been 
viewing Life from the summit of a lowly- 
hill, he now overlooked it from the top of a 
high mountain. With one glance he was now 
able to trace its borders ; and he was dimly 
aware of the " why " and " how " of every- 
thing. 

As he listened to the murmur of the city 
that nestled deep below in the valley, he 
thought of the thousands of human beings 
that were fighting their battle of Life; each 
one of them his own battle, with its own sor- 
rows and joys, its own hope and despair. 

130 



The Great Secret 

Most of them, thought Velmar, knew not 
why they wiere fighting. Life to them was 
a gift which they had been compelled to ac- 
cept. And, naturally, they rebelled at the 
thought of sorrow and struggle. 

How blind they were ! There were social- 
ists, anarchists, capitalists, creeds and socie- 
ties, envying and fighting each other. How 
foolish, how utterly foolish ! As if one could 
reach the realm of happiness by means of 
envy, grudge and hatred. 

They were both blind — capitalists as well 
as socialists. Neither thought of giving; 
their only thought was to obtain more, more, 
always more. Could they only think as Psy- 
che did. Would not then the real brother- 
hood of Man exist? Would not then every 
one be happier? 

Happy. . . . Strange that, a short while 

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The Great Secret 

ago, when he had knelt before the woman who 
could not love him, the climax of his unhap- 
piness had seemed to have arrived. Yet, now, 
he felt strong and happy. 

Sorrow, then, was indirectly caused by the 
lack of understanding of the divine purpose 
of Existence. 

She, Psyche, had taught him ; she, whom 
he loved, but no longer desired to be his own, 
his very property. 

He took her hand, and kissed it rever- 
ently. 

" Thank you," he murmured, " and forgive 
me my weakness. I no longer beg you for a 
love with which you cannot bless me. Your 
gift is even rarer than that of personal love. 
You have shown me the key to the mystery 
of Existence ; you have taught me the secret 
of human brotherhood; you have pointed out 

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The Great Secret 

the road to the Heaven we mortals dream 
about, but kr^ow not. 

" I shall prove my gratitude by teaching the 
people in yonder town about the wonderful 
things you have told me. 

" And now, farewell, Psyche. I am unable 
to find the words that could express my grati- 
tude. Farewell, Psyche, and thank you, thank 
you." 

But Psyche spoke not. Slowly she got 
up, then stood motionless and mute — a beau- 
tiful living statue, covered with the thin, dark 
veil of approaching night. 

And the first stars appeared in the black- 
blue heaven ; and the lights of the city 
below twinkled in the distance. A deep 
silence had settled upon the scene, and 
wrapped the world in peace and quietude and 
slumber. 

133 



The Great Secret 

Velmar watched his companion. He was 
unable to move or speak. His whole being 
quivered with the sense of something - ineffa- 
bly beautiful, something divine. 

Now she stretched her hands towards the 
sky, as if she wished to embrace the stars, 
the heaven, the deep, the still deeper deep, the 
All. . . . 

Then Velmar saw the strangest happening 
he had ever witnessed. Psyche stood sharply 
outlined in the light of the rising moon. But, 
suddenly, the lines of her beautiful profile 
and her graceful figure became dimmer, still 
dimmer. . . . 

A few moments afterwards, the night- 
breeze softly swept the spot where Psyche 
had stood. 

Velmar stood awe-stricken, motionless — 
for how long, he did not know. The solemn 

134 



The Great Secret 

sound of a distant bell striking the hour 
brought him back to consciousness. 

He lifted his hands to the mighty deep 

above, and muttered : " Psyche . . . God. . . ." 



135 



SWAN -SONG OF A MODERN 
FANATIC 

I am dying. . . . 

I am not afraid. Soon the papers shall 
contain the announcement of the death of Mr. 
X., twenty-three years of age, who had been 
the victim of consumption. But this an- 
nouncement should read : Mr. X's body suc- 
cumbed yesterday through the effects of se- 
vere lung trouble. My body shall die ; but I, 
my real Self, shall go on living. 

Should I be afraid of the Unknown Be- 
yond? There is no Hereafter, no Beyond. I 
am only aware of a Here, an everlasting Here. 

136 



The Great Secret 

This fathomless Universe, this spaceless 
Space, is Her£, whether I am imprisoned in 
a material body or not. And, surely, no 
secret closet is hidden in the bosom of the 
world-abyss, wherein the departed ones shall 
dwell for evermore. For Space, were this 
closet-heaven ever so small, would be a lim- 
ited and therefore a material dwelling-place. 
No, I am not afraid .to leave this Life. 
For I am convinced that bodily Man and 
material Life are degenerations of something 
else that is more exalted, more sublime. 
Hades, that savage superstitious belief of 
yore that still terrorizes humanity with its 
imaginary soul-tortures — what else is it but 
material Life? O, ye fools, that cling to 
materialism : to financial schemes, the latest 
fashion and afternoon-tea parties. Think of 
the hidden forces that move the planets of the 

137 



The Great Secret 

solar system : think of the endless depths of 
Space that ever were and ever shall exist, in 
comparison with — a slit-skirt or a newly 
patented buttonhook! 

I do not belong to this present Life. I 
should have waited another century before 
appearing in a visible body. The force that 
creates bodily matter seems to be aware of 
this fact : for it slowly relaxes its hold on 
this prison-house of flesh, and my body is 
decaying; or as people would have it, I am 
dying. 

What is the use of my living in this our 
" enlightened " age ? Many are the secrets 
I wish to entrust humanity with, but few are 
the truths that are acknowledged as such. 
And thus it shall always be. Woe to the soul 
that knows ! His life shall ever be one of 
crucifixion! His words of Wisdom shall be 

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The Great Secret 

sneered at, to be accepted perhaps as universal 
truth a few Centuries afterwards. 

I, who am in the grasp of Death, shall utter 
my last roar of indignation at the almost un- 
believable ignorance, the heathen-superstition 
and the pious hypocrisy that pervade human- 
ity of the present day. Standing on the 
threshold of the so-called Beyond, which is 
merely a higher, a more spiritual, state of the 
material Here, I am able to see without see- 
ing, to hear without hearing. 

Go mutilate my grave, ye blind, material- 
istic men of Sciencec. Endow me with the 
venomous powers of your Satan, ye that un- 
dertake to teach humanity of the word of 
God. I, my Self, shall soon be beyond your 
merciless grasp. A power greater than ig- 
norant criticism, greater than pious platitudes, 
shall have taken me — whither ? 

139 



The Great Secret 

Science answers with an eloquent silence ; 
Religion with the fiery description of a burn- 
ing Hades. 

Our present race has reached a climax of 
ignorance. It has reached a point of down- 
ward progress where blindness is equal to 
absolute darkness, where materialism is the 
perfectly built child of degeneracy. Human- 
ity cannot go farther. As the ocean-wave 
loses its way towards the shore — the turning- 
point on its rolling path — and then seeks 
again the watery bosom, thus has our human 
race at present come to a momentary stand- 
still on the shore of absolute materialism, 
which envelops it in a dark veil of total ig- 
norance. And it is ready to return very 
slowly to the infinite bosom of the ocean of 
Wisdom. 

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The Great Secret 

The above statement is probably, according 
to our scientists and, no doubt, the clergy 
too, the unhealthy vapor of a mentally unbal- 
anced mind. To say that we, the inventors of 
the gramophone and the wireless, the found- 
ers of Sunday schools and rescue-homes for 
fallen women, have reached the climax of 
ignorance, is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
pure lunacy. This indignant exclamation 
merely proves, in my opinion, the intensity 
of the ignorance referred to. 

Let no one be mistaken as to the ignorance 
meant. There is- but one ignorancce : exist- 
ence-ignorance. And, indeed, when interpre- 
ting the Bible and other ancient works in the 
right manner — which, by the way our 
learned philosophers and pious clergymen are 
unable to do — we should marvel at the tre- 
mendous negative progress of existence- 

141 



The Great Secret 

wisdom during the last ten to twenty 
centuries. 

Overlooking the fact that Science has 
merely rediscovered truths regarding the vis- 
ible Universe — truths that were known thou- 
sands of years before the Christian Era — it 
has, indeed, done nothing toward the solving 
of Life's problem. Science nor philosophy 
are able to tell me what peculiar transforma- 
tion is taking place within me who am strug- 
gling with Death. Science is unable to reas- 
sure me, for the simple reason that our 
learned scientists are pure materialists and 
lack spiritual development. Scientists may 
analyze and dissect, theorize and calculate, 
but they shall never be able to discover the 
hidden power of Life — unless they mingle 
their ability to dissect material Universe with 
spiritual knowledge. Let the chemist study 

142 



The Great Secret 

spiritual phenomena; he then need not draw 
the boundary line of knowledge around his 
hypothetical atom. For beyond the plane of 
matter lies the realm of spirit: nay, matter 
and spirit are one and the same substance, 
with this difference, that the former is the 
product of degeneracy of the latter. 

And we, conceited, ignorant, blind little 
fools that boast of a wonderful civilization, 
of our enlightened age, our marvelous dis- 
coveries, our infallible laboratories, etc., etc., 
we are indeed the acme of degeneracy of the 
breath of Life. 

What do I care, learned scientists, whether 
one molecule of water contains two atoms of 
Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen. What 
matters, even, be the Earth ninety million 
miles distant from the sun. Reveal to me the 
nature of the hidden power of Life: the 

143 



The Great Secret 

strange force that creates and moves the atom. 
Tell me whence I came, whence everything 
came — then only shall I grasp the now un- 
fathomable phenomena of Nature. 

If science, then, endeavors to satisfy my 
thirst to know by suggesting that I owe my 
existence to the birth of an antediluvian ape 
(may the Supreme Being be deaf to such 
superior Wisdom), I shall have to seek a 
refuge elsewhere. 

There is the church. . . . 

There exists a book, pregnant with supe- 
rior Wisdom, that contains the very secret of 
God and Life, and that yet has done more 
to keep humanity in ignorance than even the 
scientists with their materialistic theories and 
viewpoints. This sad condition is not due to 
the fact that said book is worthless, but it 
exists because people have been taught to 

144 



The Great Secret 

worship its ink and paper, instead of its es- 
sence of Truth. 

There is an institution nestled in the very 
bosom of humanity that extends its roots from 
nation to nation, from city to city ; that 
has tied up hundred of millions of dead 
capital in its elaborate temples, wherein 
an unknown Supreme Being is being wor- 
shipped, wherein humanity is being taught — 
nothing. 

This statement is, no doubt, a blasphemous 
one. Be it so. Truth, when uttered in a 
world of ignorance, does sound discordant, 
blasphemous ; while untruth sounds harmoni- 
ous and divine. 

Driven by soul-torture and anguish of 
death, I visited church after church, praying, 
hoping that my ear might catch the Secret 

145 



The Great Secret 

Word that would disclose the fathomless 
depths of Universe. 

" Give me rest ! " prayed my soul ; " surely, 
I who exist have a right to know whither I 
shall go after death, whence I came previous 
to my birth ! Surely, I, who am an atom of 
this fathomless Universe, have a right to 
know What or Who caused my existence." 

And from the pulpit sounded the solemn 
answer : " Six thousand years ago it pleased 
the Lord to create Man in His own image." 
Surely a more sublime suggestion than that 
of the scientists who claim the ape to be my 
ancestor. And yet — think of the Supreme 
Being shortening the Eternal hours by crea- 
ting stars and human beings that are helpless 
in Its all-powerful grasp; bringing upon Its 
little worms of clay Joy or Sorrow whenever 
its pleases It; destroying a San Francisco by 

146 



The Great Secret 

earthquakes, a Titanic by means of an ice- 
berg. 

If such is the God you worship, my broth- 
ers, I would indeed prefer to follow the ex- 
ample of the heathens of yore who worshipped 
the warm, vitalizing sun in the blue heavens. 

There are countless ways of reading and 
appreciating the Bible. And the amount of 
Wisdom to be derived from this mysterious 
book depends solely upon the degree of spiri- 
tuality of the reader. The most simple, child- 
ish and ignorant manner in which to read 
the Scriptures is to read them word for word 
and learn them by heart. This is the method 
followed by the church. It forces a volume 
of empty, meaningless words upon humanity 
that craves spiritual food. Innumerable dark 
sayings of the Bible are, often wilfully, not 

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The Great Secret 

grasped by the teachers of the Word them- 
selves. 

The Bible is a chemical formula of a soul- 
medicine. But humanity at large is unable 
to read the chemical characters and symbols, 
yet worships the formula given to them. If 
they understood the meaning of those mys- 
terious symbols, they would be able to prepare 
the medicine themselves. They would sud- 
denly be able to gaze beyond the depths of 
Universe : for this medicine is Wisdom, 
Spiritual understanding. 

Our descendants, my dear brothers, shall 
teach their children of one of the religions of 
the twentieth century; a religion consisting 
for 99 per cent, of materialism and, therefore, 
ignorance ; a religion, it must be admitted, 
founded on a book of Wisdom — which book, 
however, was turned by people themselves 

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The Great Secret 

into a book of Ignorance. These, our spiritu- 
ally more^ developed descendants, shall fur- 
ther remark, with an air of superior pity, that 
this book of Wisdom was, in those olden 
times, a pearl cast before the swine. For, 
indeed, humanity of the twentieth century was 
blinded by materialism, and he that clings to 
material life and possession is shut out from 
the kingdom of Heaven, is barred from the 
realm of Wisdom and divine understanding. 
Even tbose that instructed humanity in those 
dark ages did not grasp the veiled meanings 
of the Bible. How could they? They were, 
like their brothers, thorough materialists, with 
this difference, that they knew the words of 
the book of Wisdom, and enjoyed a life- 
long salaried position. Even if they knew, 
they certainly were not willing to ponder 
over the great truth that he only can be a 

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The Great Secret 

teacher of humanity whose path is one of 
thorns and rock, whose life is one of cruci- 
fixion. 

Verily, I say unto you, my brothers, and 
especially unto those that think they teach 
the Word, verily I say unto you : he that is 
of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the 
earth ; he that cometh from heaven is above 
all. Cling to material things, and your soul 
shall keep on slumbering; existence shall re- 
main a fathomless mystery; sorrow and dis- 
appointment shall be your masters. But sub- 
due your " Self " that ever wishes and desires, 
that is pleased with gold and wounded by 
sorrow ; subdue your " I," and the kingdom 
of Heaven which is within you shall reign 
supreme. You shall be able to gaze beyond 
the remotest star of the heavens, beyond the 
atom of chemistry. The hidden power of 

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The Great Secret 

Life that moves a Jupiter and a molecule, 
that causey the fire to fall from the clouded 
sky, and the electric spark to flash from the 
wire — it shall be yours. 

Verily, I say unto you : he that findeth his 
life shall lose it, and he that loseth it shall 
find it. 

Would you know the secret power of Life? 
Would you master and control it? Shall I 
lisp the secret Word ? Shall I give the hidden 
formula ? 

Not I ! Not I ! 

You, to whom the body is more valuable 
than the soul and spirit, to whom comfort 
and luxury appear to be the sole aim in life, 
you would bring chaos and ruin among your 
brothers. You would use this fire of the 
heavens for your own benefit, instead of for 

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The Great Secret 

the good of all humanity. You are as yet 
too much of ignorant children to know of 
such wonderful things. The time has not yet 
come. This secret I shall take with me — 
not into the grave as people would have it — 
but beyond. Nor think that it will be lost 
forever in the giddy depths of the Universe. 
It shall be jealously guarded until you, chil- 
dren, shall have grown up and shall be able 
to bear the truth. For the present, be satis- 
fied with your child play of hypnotism, spiri- 
tualism, christian science and other isms. 
For the present, believe your great-grand- 
father to be a monkey, and light the vibration 
of the ether; for the present, believe that the 
Supreme Being created Adam six thousand 
years ago, and that Eve was created from 
Adam's rib. 

Seek and you shall find! If you are unable 

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The Great Secret 

to find it to-day, you shall find it in a thou- 
sand years from to-day. Eternity is, and can 
afford to wait. Time is not, but only in your 
little intellect that is unable to grasp the things 
your soul can conceive. 

Death is approaching. No time is given 
me to peruse the book of Wisdom and disclose 
its hidden meaning. This alone is the work 
of a life time. Nor would it be wise to ac- 
quaint my brothers with all the powerful 
secrets that slumber in its chapters. They are 
not ripe for such Wisdom. They would not 
understand. And even if they understood, 
they might use the newly found powers for 
their own selfish interest. For this is the age 
of Materialism and strong is he who has the 
power to resist the luring call of gold and 
property. 

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The Great Secret 

Merely to prove that the Bible is not being 
worshipped for its marvelous Wisdom; that 
nothing else but paper and ink and empty 
words are being adored; I shall quote at 
random a few statements of the book of Wis- 
dom, which statements are being swallowed 
and blindly repeated without their deep, sig- 
nificant meaning being grasped to the least 
extent. With regard to the creation of man 
for instance, we find the Bible to describe, be 
it ever so vaguely, a certain process of the 
former. The worshipper of empty words 
knows but of one creation of man, but the fol- 
lower of truth reads very clearly of two crea- 
tions. 

In Gen. i, 2j, we read: "And God created 
man in his own image, in the image of God 
created he him." 

In Gen. 2, 5, is stated : " No plant of the 

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field was yet in the earth — no herb of the 
field had yet sprung- up : for the Lord 
God had not caused it to rain upon the 
earth, and there was not a man to till the 
ground." 

Peculiar indeed ! There was not a man to 
till the ground. And yet we read in Chapter 
i, 27, that God had created man in his own 
image. In his own image ! 

Perhaps the secret lies hidden in those four 
words. Perhaps Man was already, but only 
as an image of God, only as a spiritual being. 
For what do we read a few lines further on 
in Gen. 2, 7: "And the Lord God formed 
Man of the dust of the ground and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul." 

This is the second creation. Here man is 
being created once more, this time however 

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" from the dust of the ground." The " pious " 
man may, of course, believe that man's flesh 
and blood were formed from the dust and 
the mud which are even too repulsive to min- 
gle with our shoe leather. And it is probably 
the blasphemous unbeliever who pictures him- 
self " man formed from the dust of the 
ground " as a visible, material, bodily man — 
a lower state, a degeneration of the man cre- 
ated " in the image of God ; " a product of 
downward progress from the erstwhile spiri- 
tual, bodiless, God-like man. 

Where, learned followers of Darwin, does 
your ape-monster come in, when reading this 
more than scientific book of Wisdom in this 
manner ? Who knows, perhaps you shall 
some day disappoint the evolutionists in their 
ape-hobby by claiming that man is the 
ancestor of the gorilla, instead of the 

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monkey being the grinning grandfather of 
man ! , 

Why, teachers of the Word of God, do you 
wilfully overlook this downward progress of 
man's creation? Why do you not teach that 
man's second creation from the dust of the 
ground was the starting-point of sin, the 
birth of Satan, sorrow and misery? Is not 
material Life in truth the Hades you threaten 
people with after death? See how it causes 
you to suffer and despair; how it has over- 
powered that other part of you, which is 
" man created in the image of God," which 
is the Kingdom of Heaven, the Light, the 
Truth, the mysterious Beyond. Verily, I say 
unto you that 99 per cent, of your being is 
of the Earth and clings to the dust of the 
ground, while only one per cent, is the blurred 
image of God! 

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The Great Secret 

When we add to the above that the very 
first sentence of the Bible is a mistranslation, 
should we not then be filled with despairing 
pity for blind, groping - humanity? But what 
clergyman would inform the brethren of his 
congregation that the opening sentence of 
Genesis in Hebrew reads : " And the gods 
created the heaven and the earth ! " And, 
yet, if he would take the trouble to trace 
the meaning of those " gods," if he could 
realize what hidden sublime powers are 
meant by them, he would certainly clarify 
his now troubled conception of the One 
Deity. 

Is it blasphemy to believe, to know, that 
man and Earth were not directly created by 
the Supreme Being? I who am fearlessly 
facing your unknown Beyond, I say unto you : 
to state that the One Supreme Being, the In- 

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effable, the Unnamable, the Incomprehensible, 
created this my lowly body and yonder heap 
of dirt — that, that is blasphemy! 

The Bible is a book of Wisdom. But it 
is given to very few of us to grasp its essence 
of Truth. Ye that blindly repeat empty words 
and meaningless sentences, I beg to call your 
attention to the following statements of 
Christ, your Saviour: 

Matt. 13, 10: "And the disciples came, 
and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto 
them (the people) in parables? 

11. He (Christ) answered and said unto 
them, Because it is given unto you to know 
the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but 
to them it is not given. 

12. For whosoever hath, to him shall be 
given, and he shall have more abundance ; but 

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The Great Secret 

whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken 
away even that which he hath. 

13. Therefore speak I to them in parables : 
because they seeing see not ; and hearing they 
hear not, neither do they understand." 

In spite of the above statements of Christ, 
we hear people blindly repeat the parables 
referred to, without even attempting to trace 
a deep, significant meaning in them. Mate- 
rialistic humanity of to-day still sees and yet 
sees not. Neither does it understand. For 
people have not (spiritual qualities and, con- 
sequently, divine understanding) and from 
them shall be taken away even that which 
they have. 

Notwithstanding I am dying, nothing shall 
be taken away from me — not even Life, sun- 
shine and flowers. For I have, and therefore 
enjoy eternal Life. Nor am I broken-hearted 

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The Great Secret 

because I must leave this material world with 
its sorrows and pleasures. It is yours to lose 
it, my brothers : I cannot lose it, for I have it 
not. 

The Bible appears to be a book of Wisdom 
indeed. For in Revelation 13, verse 17, we 
read: 

" And that no man might buy or sell, save 
he that had the mark or the name of the beast, 
or the number of his name." 

And in the next verse: 

" Here is Wisdom. Let him that hath un- 
derstanding count the number of the beast: 
for it is the number of a man; and his num- 
ber is six hundred three score and six." 

The number of the man is 666, and one 
should arrive to this conclusion by counting 
the number of the beast. What sort of W T is- 

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The Great Secret 

dom may this be? Does the pulpit explain 
such Wisdom? Is there any teacher of 
the Word of God who " hath understand- 
ing?" 

It would appear that the author of Reve- 
lation very cautiously endeavored to impart 
his Wisdom only to him that " hath under- 
standing." Hidden in a mysterious veil of 
numbers and figures, which were hieroglyphs 
to the public at large, the author gave out his 
Wisdom to a few elect. 

Also Christ gave his Wisdom to a few 
elect, the apostles or disciples. To the public 
at large he spake in parables, for seeing they 
saw not and hearing they heard not, neither 
did they understand. 

Ye brothers that worship paper and ink, 
empty words and meaningless sentences — 
how I do pity you! 

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The Great Secret 

Birth and Death! Both exist for all that 
is made from the dust of the ground and 
everything pertaining to it. Thus is not only 
your body born to die or the star in the dark- 
blue depths of Space, but also seas and con- 
tinents of our mother Earth. And with the 
continents have perished and shall perish 
races and their civilization. And new con- 
tinents shall arise, new races shall appear. 

Unknown to the materialists and dollar- 
hunters, a new race is being born on the North 
American continent. The germ of the com- 
ing philosophy-religion has taken root in the 
American mind. The latter is already far 
superior, far more broad-minded and uni- 
versal than that of our European brothers. 
Let Europe bark at the policies and view- 
points of our president. Let big business and 
materialists criticize his anti-materialistic 

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The Great Secret 

ideas. Superior Wisdom cannot be hurt by 
ignorant criticism. And truly, my American 
brothers, greater leader of your nation than 
Woodrow Wilson you have never had. The 
old conception of a leader of men being a 
brave, courageous Hercules, whose sword is 
ready to bring death and destruction unto 
your enemies, has shriveled within the web 
of the years. Let Roosevelt fight and be pop- 
ular. Let Wilson think, grasp and conceive, 
and be unpopular. Verily I say unto you : 
the former shall lose his life, because he finds 
it daily; the latter shall find it, because he 
loses it hourly. Do not appreciate your pres- 
ident if you cannot. In years to come the 
now younger generation shall praise him as 
a great reformer of society. Wise men are 
generally appreciated after their day of bur- 
ial. ... 

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The Great Secret 

Birth and Death! Neither exist for him 
who " hath." To him shall be given and he 
shall have more abundance. Eternal Life is 
his, for he has found it, and is aware of the 
reality of the same. He cannot even lose that 
which others have, i. e. material life with its 
apparent beauties and pleasures. And even 
I who have written the above " blasphemous " 
lines enjoy eternal life. 

Would you inspire me with fear for the 
Deity, to Whom you have given the qualities 
of your own being? Children, you know not 
the Supreme Being, neither do I, nor does any 
human being. Nor does the Supreme Being 
know Itself. In your childish ignorance you 
picture the One as a " He." You are never 
tired of stating that " God is love." What is 
love, my brother? You tell each other that 
God is merciful, or speak of God's wrath. 

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The Great Secret 

Indeed your spiritual conception is a little 
higher than that of the child of nature that 
worships a wooden statue; you are not in 
need of a tangible representation of the Deity, 
for your mind is able to picture a personal 
Being with your own good and bad qualities. 
But your conception of the One is a little 
lower than that of many a " heathen," whose 
ancestor realized, ten thousand years ago, 
that the Deity is impersonal and undefin- 
able. 

Picture yourself the Universe as it was 
before the beginning — empty, dark, deep, 
deep, still deeper. . . . There are no stars to 
follow a pathless path, no suns to heat the 
fields and meadows of planets. There is noth- 
ing beside that fathomless, infinite, Eternal 
Deep. This Deep, when considered from a 
materialistic view-point, is either naught or 

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The Great Secret 

negative; but when spiritually conceived, it 
is positive. It is the One, the All, the Incon- 
ceivable. Not even a name should we give 
It, lest we should define It. Would you in- 
deed, my brothers, say of this Incomprehen- 
sible One that It is love, that It is good or 
wrathful? Would you maintain that It 
created you in your present lowly body- 
form? 
Indeed, I am ashamed of you ! 

The hour of Death has struck . . . , but 
Eternity does not even shiver. The dust of 
the ground collapses . . . , but the image of 
God is unmoved. Untruth reigns in this lit- 
tle earthly corner, but the Truth vibrates from 
world-center to world-center and beyond. . . . 

The day is Darkness, but the night of the 
Unknown Beyond is Light. 

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The Great Secret 

I am here; I shall always be here. . . . 
Ye shall see me without seeing me, and hear 
me without hearing me. . . . 



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